Tour de France Tour de France Femmes 2023 (July 23rd-30th)

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This has been the story of the season - Other teams refuse to take a collective approach to pressuring SD Worx - In saying that, Charlotte kool was very disappointing in the final.

DSM say she was stuck by the barrier so couldn't sprint, so poor positioning rather than poor sprinting, but hard to tell from the TV coverage
 
These flat-rolling stages proliferate on the women's calendar. I am absolutely convinced you are right, that the entire premise is dedicated around as many people as possible still being in contention for the final weekend so the action is meaningful. It's essentially six stages of jockeying around for position but with a few slightly hilly stages so that there will be fights for seconds on the weekdays (perfect for evening highlights packages) before the stages expected to actually set the GC take place at the weekend.

It's backloading in extremis. I mean, I know that the TdFFaZ only has one week to play with rather than three, but starting in Clermont-Ferrand and ending in the Pyrenées you'd think they could have found at least a medium mountain stage somewhere. The two cat.2 climbs in the race are absurdly over-categorised. I mean, the stage around Clermont-Ferrand and the stage into Albi could both be beefed up into a medium mountain stage to give better balance and at least a bit more of a feel of a Grand Tour.

I think a good platform for what would feel like a genuine GT for the women in France over 8 stages would be a parcours along the lines of men's Paris-Nice. There's usually only the one 'true' mountain stage with an MTF but it ends with at least one more stage full of climbing, if there's a TT it's in the middle (unless they go back to the Col d'Èze TT, which I don't actually like all that much even if it is traditional), and in the middle there's usually a selective intermediate type stage.
Thanks a bunch!

Agree that trying out the P-N kind of template could work. Of course, SD might still be able to totally boss the medium stage. Then again, if they did and caught AVV on the back foot, at least there would be a bit of extra chasing for her to do.

Perplexed by Kasia's speculative digs on practically every stage. Entertaining but seems like wasting energy to me. No way does SD allow her to go and no way does she ride away either. Yeah, someone could join, but then back to square one and SD will just shut it.
 
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Thanks a bunch!

Agree that trying out the P-N kind of template could work. Of course, SD might still be able to totally boss the medium stage. Then again, if they did and caught AVV on the back foot, at least there would be a bit of extra chasing for her to do.

Perplexed by Kasia's speculative digs on practically every stage. Entertaining but seems like wasting energy to me. No way does SD allow her to go and no way does she ride away either. Yeah, someone could join, but then back to square one and SD will just shut it.
I think that's just Kasia being Kasia. She wants to get away, she will never be able to resist the temptation to try if she has the legs, and she will probably not succeed and then pay for the effort expended on the days when she needs that energy. It's part of what makes her so popular and fun to follow, but part of what makes her so exasperating at the same time and part of why she hasn't won a race since 2019.
 
Stage 4 profile Cahors to Rodez, 5 categorised climbs, sprint and bonus seconds up for grabs

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and it definitely finishes uphill in the last 1km

tour-de-france-femmes-2023-stage-4-finish-2b3f4c22ca.png
 
At some point Cille has to awaken, microphones have been waiting patiently for months now.

Otherwise, either 20km of proper action, or Lippert battles out the last riser and we see if SD Worx have learned anything from stage 2.
I'll take anything other than one of the SDW riders going off the front again as everyone just watches her while SDW bullies and disrupts the chase and gets their hundredth 1-2 of the year.