Tour de France Femmes 2025 (July 26th- August 3rd)

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This was the infamous "stolen Vuelta". The penultimate stage was a medium mountain stage around the Sierra de Guadarrama, with around 40km from the rather middling Puerto del León to the finish at the DYC distilleries in Palazuelo de Eresma; expected to be a stage for the break with Robert Millar (apologies to deadname, but I think it's inevitable when discussing their active career) holding a slender lead from Pacho Rodríguez (who is Colombian for the record, but was on a Spanish team), and Pello Ruíz Cabestany just over a minute behind, but nobody else within five minutes. Noted baroudeur José Recio was in the breakaway when Pedro Delgado, 6th on GC, rode across to him from far out. Delgado was over 6 minutes down, and 5 minutes away from the podium, so little incentive to chase, and with only a flat stage to follow, it was thought as a rather hopeless hail mary. Except the gap kept growing, and kept growing until somehow Delgado was in the virtual lead and the GC guys had expended a lot of their domestiques, while Delgado had done the classic deal with Recio, offering the stage in exchange for collaboration, and they were working well together up front.

Turns out that the organisers had been putting false time gaps on the boards meaning that Millar and co. had not realised how far up the road Delgado actually was, until suddenly the chalkboard said Delgado was miles out in front, like he'd gained five minutes in no time at all, and Millar panicked. Having expended his own domestiques and having alienated many of his rivals with arrogant comments en route to the race lead, he asked around for support and got none, Pacho Rodríguez claimed to have said something along the lines of "who came 2nd last year, do you remember? That's why" when asked by Millar why he wasn't contributing to protect his 2nd place.

At the time, much of Spain was very much in favour of this; obviously Delgado was a more popular rider in Spain, and Millar had hardly been making many friends in the Spanish péloton or with the Spanish press. The Vuelta was also emerging from an era where they were too keenly aware of their status as the runt of the GT litter and had been all too easy for the overseas teams to bully, as they were often offering significant concessions around their preferred overseas stars, with examples such as when Ferdinand Bracke was given a time penalty for an illegal feed, so Peugeot threatened to withdraw their team from the race and a hapless commissaire was forced to pretend he wrote the wrong race number down, even though Bracke was pretty recognisable, wearing the race leader's jersey at the time, and the guy that eventually got the time penalty, a random Spanish domestique, was in a completely different group not being monitored by the same commissaire anyway. The Spanish teams would usually self-destruct through in-fighting or they would be busy squabbling amongst themselves and allow outsiders to triumph (indeed this was a large part of Éric Caritoux's victory the previous year), so as a result, after years of the foreign teams banding together and bullying the Vuelta's organisers into favourable circumstances, there was a fair bit of triumphalism about the way the Spanish teams and organisers had managed to come together for once to engineer a home success, which only served to exacerbate the controversy. The fact that Britain would then have to wait another 27 years for a Grand Tour winner (eventually reduced to 26, but obviously we didn't know that at the time) ensured the story stayed alive for decades.
But what happened in the Tour le Femme, that is anyway comparable to that incident? or even comparable to the Moser/Fignon incident at the 84 Giro or the Delgado 'bribe' in the 89 Vuelta.

There is nothing that happened that you can point at and say that looked a bit iffy, maybe at a stretch FDJ not making PFP do the chasing of AVDB, but I think they had already accepted defeat and were more interested in getting rid of Gigante after Joux Plane.

Your Big "suspicion" is Rousse saying a French rider would win, so unless absolutely everybody was in on this and the organisers paid them off, or they let PFP dope to the gills with impunity, there is zero evidence like in the examples from the 80s. It would also raise questions about Maeva Squiban winning two stages like she did as well.

There was a big increase in the numbers roadside this year, even before PFP won on Madelaine so the Tour seems to be growing organically. Also the French do not always need a winner, they loved Virenque and he never won much beyond the KOM and a few stages.

There is more credibility to the idea the others teams let Cav win his stage last year and even I don't buy into that.
 
But what happened in the Tour le Femme, that is anyway comparable to that incident? or even comparable to the Moser/Fignon incident at the 84 Giro or the Delgado 'bribe' in the 89 Vuelta.

There is nothing that happened that you can point at and say that looked a bit iffy, maybe at a stretch FDJ not making PFP do the chasing of AVDB, but I think they had already accepted defeat and were more interested in getting rid of Gigante after Joux Plane.

Your Big "suspicion" is Rousse saying a French rider would win, so unless absolutely everybody was in on this and the organisers paid them off, or they let PFP dope to the gills with impunity, there is zero evidence like in the examples from the 80s. It would also raise questions about Maeva Squiban winning two stages like she did as well.

There was a big increase in the numbers roadside this year, even before PFP won on Madelaine so the Tour seems to be growing organically. Also the French do not always need a winner, they loved Virenque and he never won much beyond the KOM and a few stages.

There is more credibility to the idea the others teams let Cav win his stage last year and even I don't buy into that.
Somebody asked about whether such orchestrated pageantry would feel similarly convenient in Spain or Italy, and I pointed out that the Spanish and the Italians have orchestrated finishes before. That was why 1985 came up. After that I was asked to elaborate by somebody seemingly not familiar with the story and so I recounted what happened in that race. That was a separate aside from discussing what happened in the TdFF.

I agree, there is nothing that suggests blatant rigging in the TdFF, and after all the power outputs PFP put out on the Madeleine were up there with Vollering 2023 Tourmalet as strongest performances recorded in women's cycling, which you simply can't stage-manage in the "Vingegaard drops a few seconds at the line to ensure he can't pass Kuss on time bonuses" manner.

But the way she blasted away so easily at the end to get everybody else out of sight, take the final stage solo and give the perfect media shots while everybody opined about the magic #51 just seemed like piling a huge amount of sweetened cream atop the cherry on top of the icing on the cake to the point where the cake was just too sickly sweet to enjoy anymore. With all the media pageantry that accompanied it, while each part is explicable, it became almost performative, not quite as vulgar a display of power as Froome and Poels slowing down to let Dumoulin back at Cervinia only to then blast away from him again, but really taking the joy out of the moment for me nonetheless.
 
Somebody asked about whether such orchestrated pageantry would feel similarly convenient in Spain or Italy, and I pointed out that the Spanish and the Italians have orchestrated finishes before. That was why 1985 came up. After that I was asked to elaborate by somebody seemingly not familiar with the story and so I recounted what happened in that race. That was a separate aside from discussing what happened in the TdFF.

I agree, there is nothing that suggests blatant rigging in the TdFF, and after all the power outputs PFP put out on the Madeleine were up there with Vollering 2023 Tourmalet as strongest performances recorded in women's cycling, which you simply can't stage-manage in the "Vingegaard drops a few seconds at the line to ensure he can't pass Kuss on time bonuses" manner.

But the way she blasted away so easily at the end to get everybody else out of sight, take the final stage solo and give the perfect media shots while everybody opined about the magic #51 just seemed like piling a huge amount of sweetened cream atop the cherry on top of the icing on the cake to the point where the cake was just too sickly sweet to enjoy anymore. With all the media pageantry that accompanied it, while each part is explicable, it became almost performative, not quite as vulgar a display of power as Froome and Poels slowing down to let Dumoulin back at Cervinia only to then blast away from him again, but really taking the joy out of the moment for me nonetheless.
Question is really if the French wouldn't frame it like they're doing if it was an organic win, and I can't be convinced they wouldn't go completely over the top on the celebration and chauvinism element.
 
Do you think she'd have had the legs? PFP was otherworldly
I think she would have been 30 seconds behind Gigante on stage 8.

Even on a 2m+ gap she is dangerous as she is super strong on the flat-hilly terrain. PFP was islotated the last 80? km of stage 9, I think having Reusser there could have made the race more suspensful at least.
 
What are we even disagreeing on? I'm not saying "this race was fixed" or "this rider was clearly doping". As mentioned, after stage 8 I was one of those shouting down those people arguing that PFP wasn't capable of climbing like this. I'm saying that so many stars aligned that I don't feel comfortable proclaiming that everything is sunshine and rainbows. I can't put my finger on what it is that doesn't sit right with me, but I don't feel the kind of joy I expected.

Last year, it was easy to pinpoint. Kasia winning was a huge thing worthy of celebration, and that they signed off on the race with an absolute epic of a stage, something that belongs in the all-time lore of Alpe d'Huez and the Tour, was such a buzz - yet there was a certain hollowness in the way that it had happened, a level of sadness and sympathy for Demi, sat there broken on the tarmac counting the seconds and learning that she hadn't done enough, and knowing full well that she was the rightful winner of the race, if her team had only decided to ride not just "not for" her, but actively against her. It made the victory for Kasia at least a little bittersweet, even though it would be impossible not to recognise she pulled an all-timer recovery ride on the Alpe to save that jersey. There was a massive outpouring of sympathy for Demi at the time as a victim of somebody else's hubris - a huge reserve of goodwill that she has largely squandered away since.

Maybe it's just the old "Batman is more interesting than Superman" theory at play, that we are seeing in men's cycling; PFP's adversity has been across the middle part of her career, and largely away from road cycling fans' eyes, and despite being isolated for almost the entirety of yesterday's stage, there was never even a genuine feeling of any vulnerability.

Just my personal feelings.
 
What are we even disagreeing on? I'm not saying "this race was fixed" or "this rider was clearly doping". As mentioned, after stage 8 I was one of those shouting down those people arguing that PFP wasn't capable of climbing like this. I'm saying that so many stars aligned that I don't feel comfortable proclaiming that everything is sunshine and rainbows. I can't put my finger on what it is that doesn't sit right with me, but I don't feel the kind of joy I expected.

Last year, it was easy to pinpoint. Kasia winning was a huge thing worthy of celebration, and that they signed off on the race with an absolute epic of a stage, something that belongs in the all-time lore of Alpe d'Huez and the Tour, was such a buzz - yet there was a certain hollowness in the way that it had happened, a level of sadness and sympathy for Demi, sat there broken on the tarmac counting the seconds and learning that she hadn't done enough, and knowing full well that she was the rightful winner of the race, if her team had only decided to ride not just "not for" her, but actively against her. It made the victory for Kasia at least a little bittersweet, even though it would be impossible not to recognise she pulled an all-timer recovery ride on the Alpe to save that jersey. There was a massive outpouring of sympathy for Demi at the time as a victim of somebody else's hubris - a huge reserve of goodwill that she has largely squandered away since.

Maybe it's just the old "Batman is more interesting than Superman" theory at play, that we are seeing in men's cycling; PFP's adversity has been across the middle part of her career, and largely away from road cycling fans' eyes, and despite being isolated for almost the entirety of yesterday's stage, there was never even a genuine feeling of any vulnerability.

Just my personal feelings.
Since you're a person who manages to harbour hate toward Sepp Kuss, which is quite the achievement, I think you may generally have antipathy toward crowd favourites? I think in a sense the French embracing PFP to the extent that they do is quite surprising, as they tend to go for the anti-hero, the perennial runner up, the "always the bridesmaid never the bride" type of athlete. Normally they have more of your attitude, in other words.

PFP is, as of this week, the standard in women's road cycling, and that always comes with a whole new array of suspicion and grudges. You can compare it to how more people seemed to like Pogi when he was up fighting against the evil Jumbo empire, than now when he is the evil empire himself.

Yes, this win does seem like the wet dream of ASO and the UCI coming true, but sometimes that happens. And there was no reason PFP should have won yesterday, just like there was no reason the GC should have come down to that one climb of the Madeleine, yet it did. That's the rival teams' fault, not some giant plot to make her win.
 
Since you're a person who manages to harbour hate toward Sepp Kuss, which is quite the achievement, I think you may generally have antipathy toward crowd favourites? I think in a sense the French embracing PFP to the extent that they do is quite surprising, as they tend to go for the anti-hero, the perennial runner up, the "always the bridesmaid never the bride" type of athlete. Normally they have more of your attitude, in other words.

PFP is, as of this week, the standard in women's road cycling, and that always comes with a whole new array of suspicion and grudges. You can compare it to how more people seemed to like Pogi when he was up fighting against the evil Jumbo empire, than now when he is the evil empire himself.

Yes, this win does seem like the wet dream of ASO and the UCI coming true, but sometimes that happens. And there was no reason PFP should have won yesterday, just like there was no reason the GC should have come down to that one climb of the Madeleine, yet it did. That's the rival teams' fault, not some giant plot to make her win.
Crowds are dumb. We're real cycling fans here, we're better than the crowd.
 
To be honest, I have no idea what happened to Movistar this tour, & I don't think they do either. It really does seem that none of them turned up healthy & in any semblance of form.

That is a bit harsh. Lippert was unfortunate on stage 1, but actually looked quite good on the next stages. Then when they started working for her on stage 4 it all went downhill.
 
That's a bit too simplistic for me. Fact is that for a female body being underweight has way more long term health risks than for a male's counterpart like hormonal changes, loss of periods, let alone what eating disorders can do to the mind.

Even PFP herself admits that she was on the limit with her weight loss: “I don’t want to stay like this, because I know it’s not 100% healthy.” Just waiving away a discussion around such a delicate subject as 'no consensus is needed' and that anyone should mind their own business would negate that a reasonable discussion about this subject is in fact valuable.

 
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That's a bit too simplistic for me. Fact is that for a female body being underweight has way more long term health risks than for a male's counterpart like hormonal changes, loss of periods, let alone what eating disorders can do to the mind.

Even PFP herself admits that she was on the limit with her weight loss: “I don’t want to stay like this, because I know it’s not 100% healthy.” Just waiving away a discussion around such a delicate subject as 'no consensus is needed' and that anyone should mind their own business would negate that a reasonable discussion about this subject is in fact valuable.

Personal gains and harms makes it a personal problem that every participant has the personal responsibility to solve. PFP can best tell what balance is best for her.

Sport should not be safe. Not healthy. Not virtuous. Not good.

Sport should be competitive, ruthless and excellent.
 
7,7 million people in France watched the finish of the stage yesterday. For comparison: a peak of 8,7 million people watched the final stage for the men, which was a 20 year record.

Yet the prize money is only 1/10th of the men...
 
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Personal gains and harms makes it a personal problem that every participant has the personal responsibility to solve. PFP can best tell what balance is best for her.

Sport should not be safe. Not healthy. Not virtuous. Not good.

Sport should be competitive, ruthless and excellent.
If you truly want to adhere to such a nihilistic mindset you can discard any discussion about mental or physical health in professional sport. Fine by me, but I'm glad that teams actually put focus into these matters and that a debate arises. Professional sport athletes are role models and I think there is value in discussing these matters how to perform as a professional athlete and in the meantime stay healthy in the long-run. I also have a daughter who, if she ever has the ambition and the talent to pursue a career in cycling I desire to stay healthy, both in her mind and boy.
 
If you truly want to adhere to such a nihilistic mindset you can discard any discussion about mental or physical health in professional sport. Fine by me, but I'm glad that teams actually put focus into these matters and that a debate arises. Professional sport athletes are role models and I think there is value in discussing these matters how to perform as a professional athlete and in the meantime stay healthy in the long-run. I also have a daughter who, if she ever has the ambition and the talent to pursue a career in cycling I desire to stay healthy, both in her mind and boy.
PFP already addressed this before the Tour. She knows what she's doing, and she says elite sports aren't necessarily healthy and in that sense she doesn't want young athletes to follow her example. Her choices are her own. She also starts the season quite a bit overweight, it's not like she's skin and bones all year long.

So what's the discussion? At which weight would she be acceptable to you? Valentin Paret-Peintre weighs 52 kgs, and he's 1.76 m. Put that in the BMI calculator, I'm sure it's not completely healthy either. Should he be banned from racing?
 
PFP had addressed the weight issue before - she did an interview with Pinkbike shortly before the 2022 MTB Worlds in Les Gets; the weight loss is managed with trainers/ nutritionists and is done sensibly - and after her target the weight goes back on. After her 4 World titles in the space of 6 weeks in 2022, she did some CX races soon after signing for Ineos, and was noticeably heavier......

 
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If you truly want to adhere to such a nihilistic mindset you can discard any discussion about mental or physical health in professional sport. Fine by me, but I'm glad that teams actually put focus into these matters and that a debate arises. Professional sport athletes are role models and I think there is value in discussing these matters how to perform as a professional athlete and in the meantime stay healthy in the long-run. I also have a daughter who, if she ever has the ambition and the talent to pursue a career in cycling I desire to stay healthy, both in her mind and boy.
You can desire all you want but you don't get to make that call for her past a certain age.
 
So what's the discussion?
Well, exactly this. What AxelHangleck already points out in his link, that PFP diet is managed professionally and sensibly with the help of professional nutritionists. The fact that PFP realizes this, and puts the disclaimer on that approach and does interviews about this subject is already in itself a good thing. It shows that she realizes she is a role model and that young girls need to be aware of long term effects if not done sensibly.
 

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