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

[kingjr]

Riders are having a debate about body-weight of riders. There seems to be some push back about PFP's loss of weight. You would not have the same debate in the mens peleton.

I think if you're squeamish about losing too much weight, a sport where weight is absolutely essential for success maybe isn't for you. No reason to complain in any case, what's wrong with saying I don't want to push my body that far, I'm fine perhaps not winning races and working for others instead?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

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.

I don't know that it's so much antipathy towards crowd favourites per se (some of the riders I like are very much crowd favourites themselves), but you are probably onto something. I've always described it as a tendency to reject what I see as forced narratives, which while sometimes has typically seen me rail against media darlings or where it feels like we're being told who we're supposed to cheer for and who we're supposed to cheer against. You can point at examples like Peter Sagan, but with that it was that I disliked Peter Sagan the person first, and then became hostile to his popularity after. But as social media bleeds into old-fashioned media ever more, there is an ever-increasing overlap between those. Overt displays of patriotism often bring me out in hives, which is another layer to the discomfort.

I don't even dislike PFP, but I didn't like how yesterday's stage played out and it's just, I see the same thing you do in your final paragraph about how the win is the absolute perfect outcome for both ASO and the currently French-led UCI, but that the feeling that arouses in me is different from you.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I like Demi, but lol at this quote: “I’m proud of my weight and want to set a good example. I hope that in the future I can win again with my weight and show girls that you don’t have to be super, super skinny."

Come on, you got beaten fair and square and it wasnt even close. Simply got beaten by a way better rider. Imagine Pogi or Jonas saying that about each other after a crushing defeat - the optics are not good!

 

[kingjr]

I like Demi, but lol at this quote: “I’m proud of my weight and want to set a good example. I hope that in the future I can win again with my weight and show girls that you don’t have to be super, super skinny."

Come on, you got beaten fair and square and it wasnt even close. Simply got beaten by a way better rider. Imagine Pogi or Jonas saying that about each other after a crushing defeat - the optics are not good!

Translates as: "I'm pissed that I lost and I would like to shame the winner into coming down to my level"

 

[theyoungest]

I like Demi, but lol at this quote: “I’m proud of my weight and want to set a good example. I hope that in the future I can win again with my weight and show girls that you don’t have to be super, super skinny."

Come on, you got beaten fair and square and it wasnt even close. Simply got beaten by a way better rider. Imagine Pogi or Jonas saying that about each other after a crushing defeat - the optics are not good!

She always does this. Addresses her personal shortcomings in a way that makes it seem like she's fighting for the good of the general population. "I'm dumb as a rock. I want to show all the young morons at home that you can still win races if you're as dumb as I am".

 

[Oldman]

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.

I do on that last item....

 

[Unchained]

Labous and Muzic are both French, and are perfectly good GC candidates in their own right (both have been as high as 4th in the Tour GC, Labous back in 2022 and Muzic last year), but not premier grade ones when they're on the same team as Vollering, so both are riding in service of a Dutchwoman. The Bunels and Begos of this world are not ready yet, and the likes of Kerbaol are somewhere in between those two groups.

PFP is a pre-established French star, a media darling and somebody that the general public is already aware of and supportive of. It is better for French cycling that she be the one to crack the code rather than somebody who doesn't already have public name and face recognition value that the media have to invest time and effort to get to know and encourage the fans to get behind. Similar to how Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas both won Sports Personality of the Year awards for their Tour de France wins while Chris Froome won four, one Vuelta (his 2011 win could not have been taken into account that year because it was still Cobo's at the time) and one Giro, won all three GTs in a 12-month period, and never won that award; Sky clipped Chris Froome's wings in the 2012 Tour because Wiggins was the better story to sell back home in Britain, and the British public never took Froome to heart the way they did Wiggins or Thomas. Not only does she fit that same template of being an already-established popular figure, but PFP is a personal friend of the race director. That's why the winner of the race being not just a Frenchwoman, but PFP specifically, is another layer of the convenience, even though given Labous and Muzic were riding as helpers, she was also clearly the most likely French rider to take the prize off of this year's startline anyway.

I am curious about a couple of things in your post, if you can elaborate thanks, and if you don't want to that's your prerogative.. No judgement, honest.
You said media, media darling. Your post is not the only one, that's for sure. I have spent time in France in some of the larger cities, Grenoble , Lyon and some in Marseille.
I have also have seen a large portion of Spain, have 2 people in my family who have dual citizenship.. Spanish passport holders, I lived in 2 cities in Belgium, but mostly St. Niklaas, and some time near Frankfurt Germany..
That's the set-up for the question..
In none of those places ( countries) did I see any media coverage on cycling or cycling personalities. An honorable mention here and there, but newspapers, magazines, widely viewed media like sports as part of newscast, very, very little cycling coverage if any..
In the US during both heyday periods Greg LeMond or Lance Armstrong got almost no mention out of season, to be fair none.
And in season possible brief note about what they did at TDF .but as far as extensive coverage or column inches in newspapers at the time.. Almost nothing.. And never ever front page regardless and when they did achieve greatness it was sports section only. Because of Armstrong apparatus he crossed over a bit, was interviewed but it was weighted disproportionate about cancer and not bike racing.. So if you see exposure of riders in media, other than ultra targeted media like Cyclinguptodate, or Cycling News,ect
I am interested to see where it is and how it's used.
I have seen the puff pieces with French President making cameos at races, shaking hands and wishing well to all, but very spotty , not daily, not part of the feedback loop about the races, more like gets a call, text or email from press office, looks like a French woman is going to win, if you have an opening we can do a meet and greet, if not mention it during one of your press conferences. Still total time for recognition on high @10-15 minutes tops.

So where do you see the backstory, the character development of these riders, the public grooming for widespread popularity?
In my experience in Belgium, Eddy is widely known, but everyone else, not so much. In the US riders are more likely to get yelled at than recognized, and never asked for an autograph.
Isaac Del Toro is the biggest bike racer in Mexican history and he would be lucky out of uniform to get noticed in his hometown in Baja of @430,000, certainly not in bigger cities like Tijuana (@2.1 million) or Mexico City(@23 million) or Monterrey (@7 million w connected areas) guy is anonymous.

** just my experience** I think that pro bike racers are unrecognized in media as a whole, even in home countries, and backstory development is very, very limited to social media and targeted audiences,
In all the people I know can't imagine any of them (zero) watching a human interest piece on Pogacar, Remco, Kuss, Jorgenson, any female racers, even if they stumbled across it channel surfing and don't see where that media is available in the mainstream.
So if young French female professionals are getting attention, I have never seen it, My friends in France don't know any of the riders male or female.. Didn't watch any of the women's race is my understanding.

I often find myself talking to people about bike racing and they have no clue, need to return to my tiny social bubble of the few people who follow it,
but could go to a bar in Anytown, USA and people know LeMond and Armstrong, nothing, nobody else, not a remote clue about bike racing, racers.

 

[yaco]

That would be true if it weren‘t for the risk of acquiring a disorder that makes you unable to balance the gains and harms appropriately.

The nuance behind my post is that male riders, especially climber, types need to be as skinny as possible, which seems to be accepted by their competitors. I can't remember a male rider talking about their weight when discussing another rider, unlike Vollering who is creating aspercions about PFP loss of weight. I am certain that PVP would have worked closely with the nutritionist and Doctor at Visma.

 

[Valv.Piti]

The nuance behind my post is that male riders, especially climber, types need to be as skinny as possible, which seems to be accepted by their competitors. I can't remember a male rider talking about their weight when discussing another rider, unlike Vollering who is creating aspercions about PFP loss of weight. I am certain that PVP would have worked closely with the nutritionist and Doctor at Visma.

Thats my take as well. No other male cyclist has ever said that, and if they have, its in 100% of the cases a compliment to how professional and ready x rider is for x race. Never once I have heard anything remotely negative in regards to it

 

[Samu Cuenca]

There have been and continue to be cases of female riders pushing it too far, and for a change to happen you obviously need riders like Vollering, Kerbaol or Faulkner to speak out about it. You also don't even have to be underweight to develop an unhealthy relationship with food. That said, being very thin is an unavoidable aspect of competing at the highest level in many sports, and unless you're Mieke Kröger I'm not really sure you got the right to call out other riders.

 

[proffate]

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.

Professional athletes don't get paid because they do something objectively useful for society, like building houses or curing diseases. They are paid to be public figures, and that includes being role models for children and young adults. If athletes were not role models, we would cease to have professional sport, as (1) the sponsorship model would not work and (2) if children didn't look up to sportspeople, we would not have a next generation of athlete.

Since children are idolizing these sportspeople, we shouldn't allow the sportspeople to model excessively unhealthy behavior like eating disorders. This was one of the things that bugged me about the Chris Froome era (more than Lance, say).

I don't much follow women's cycling, but abstractly, I'd be in favor of enforced competition breaks for amenorrhea. I'd be in favor of something similar for men, although it may be harder to define an objective cutoff.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I am curious about a couple of things in your post, if you can elaborate thanks, and if you don't want to that's your prerogative.. No judgement, honest.

Edited down, but it's more about being a media darling within the context of the sport, not to say that gossip magazines are running front page news about the lives of cyclists or anything like that. That said, however, we should look at the fact that a country like France is a pretty big one with significant coverage and interest in a lot of sports, and PFP has won sportswoman of the year in France three times (2014, 2015 and 2020), and having won the TdFF now I would be genuinely shocked if she didn't take a fourth title. Julien Alaphilippe has also won three (2019, 2020 and 2021). Now, I have noticed a significant preponderance across the globe for competitors in individual sports over team sports in such awards, which brings more attention onto sports with less immediate cultural centrality in France than, say, football (soccer) or rugby (union), while the effect of a big star who captures the nation's attention in some big event or another can have knock-on effects (take Teddy Riner and Clarisse Agbegnenou's three titles apiece as judokas). Often this will be centred around an Olympic sport or discipline (take the success of Chris Hoy in the UK or Léon Marchand in France as examples), but there can be exceptions when an event has a certain specific importance to a country - Red Rick mentioned before about Andy Murray winning Wimbledon in the UK after a similarly long home drought. The Tour de France is like that, only more so. It is an event which is enshrined in the French calendar. It is written into French law that it be on free-to-air TV. It is during holiday season giving maximum opportunity for viewing, and it traverses Bastille Day. People may not know who the protagonists are or understand what's happening in the race, but they may still come out to the roadside, or get their machinery together, get stitching, buy fabric, make arrangements to make some colourful field or road art to get their little village or small town some TV time when the race comes by, and then watch excitedly to see if their display got shown.

The other thing to bear in mind is the state in which French cycling found itself when Pauline first appeared on the scene. We were deep into the péloton à deux vitesses era, where the French had been reduced to bit part players in their own show. Guys like Virenque were gone, guys like Moreau were aged out, and the French teams were peripheral at best, stagehunting in the mountains and if they did crop up on the front page of the results sheet it was usually because they'd got into a break that got gifted time. Several years in the 2000s they didn't have a single rider in the top 10. In 2007, the best placed French rider on GC was Stéphane Goubert, in 27th. Their GC hopes lay at the hands of people like Sandy Casar and Christophe le Mevel. They hadn't won a Monument since 1997 and they hadn't won a World Championship since the same year. Women's cycling was, if anything, in an even worse state. Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli was still, in her 50s, one of their best riders, winning national championships and being their best option at World Championships time trials, taking her last national TT title in 2011 at the age of 52. And when she wasn't winning, the most consistent alternative was Edwige Pitel, a former academic who didn't take up pro cycling until her late 30s and who was 43 when Pauline arrived on the scene. Everything seemed pretty grim, and then suddenly you have this highly photogenic teenage sensation appear on the scene starring across all disciplines, both winning big and performing like a star, looking every inch the new Marianne Vos. Women's cycling was extremely peripheral and to a great extent still is, but that was the world of French cycling when Pauline arrived, and it led her to become the great hope.

Simultaneously, the lack of success on the road led the French - especially the specialist press - to lend more eyes to other disciplines of the sport than might otherwise have been the case, drawing more eyes to the likes of Julien Absalon. This helped keep eyes on her even when she moved away from racing the road and decided to specialise in mountain bike in the mid 2010s, but also led to her getting into the public eye somewhat less intentionally, in the great soap opera of French cycling couples which became minor public drama at the time (exacerbated, of course, when Pauline voiced some choice words about Lizzie Armitstead's lying about her provisional suspension before Rio, leading Philip Deignan to air details of Pauline's private life in public in retribution).

France may not have cycling at its heart for a large part of the year, but it does feel to me as an outsider that at least in some quarters of the media they still feel a sense of, if not ownership of the sport, then at least some kind of custodianship, that means that they feel like they should be prominent in it. The lean times may now be over, but it should not be underestimated that Pauline came along when French cycling was at an extremely low point and offered tangible achievements, albeit in a somewhat limited pool due to the state of women's cycling at the time, that were communicable to both the cycling-viewing public AND the general casual audience (World Championships and Olympic titles, as well as holding the World title in road, cross and mountainbike simultaneously, an achievement never before done and yet to be replicated (Mathieu van der Poel being obviously the nearest)), and as an added bonus those achievements were wrapped up in a highly marketable, photo- and telegenic package.

At least as I see it, that's how she came to be a popular figure, and even if they matched her achievements, the French GC challengers of recent years and even the near future, like Labous, Muzic, Kerbaol, Bunel and so on, would not have the same currency to the French public that Ferrand-Prévot has. Not only would the media have to sell these new names and faces to a public that already knows who Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is, but they simply aren't coming around in the same circumstances. French cycling may not be at the pinnacle of the sport again, but it's far from being in the kind of gutter it was at the end of the 2000s. They won monuments in 2016, 2018 and 2019. They won World Championships in 2020 and 2021. They have had podiums at the Tour with Péraud, Pinot and Bardet, while French teams have also had podiums in Grand Tours with other riders, like O'Connor. French cycling isn't in the desperate need of hope that it was when Pauline came along. But that's also part of why it feels so convenient that Pauline return and immediately become the first French winner of Paris-Roubaix and of the Tour de France Femmes before she gets too old and starts to slow down. Because whoever it was that won it first for France was always going to become a big deal, but Pauline with her Olympic and World titles was already a big deal that makes it that bit bigger of a story.

 

[Tonton]

Riders are having a debate about body-weight of riders. There seems to be some push back about PFP's loss of weight. You would not have the same debate in the mens peleton.

So can we officially close the Betancur thread?

 

[Oldman]

I like Demi, but lol at this quote: “I’m proud of my weight and want to set a good example. I hope that in the future I can win again with my weight and show girls that you don’t have to be super, super skinny."

Come on, you got beaten fair and square and it wasnt even close. Simply got beaten by a way better rider. Imagine Pogi or Jonas saying that about each other after a crushing defeat - the optics are not good!

And, as much as I admire the talent of Demi, suggesting that "I hope that in the future I can win again with my weight and show girls that you don’t have to be super, super skinny." has implication of less than fair play by anyone that she deigns too skinny. I have no idea if what she said directly translates to that suggestion so we need an expert to confirm it.
Riding from mid 30s to mid 50s it's a fact that my body weight would be impacted by extended training periods of 15-20hrs/week in the early season. When saddle time was reduced slightly and replaced by almost entirely racing it would go down slightly but semi-useful upper body muscle would visibly exit the premises. I felt great and the archaic BMI chart meant nothing. I'm sure fat to muscle changed quite a bit and folks that hadn't seen me since the slow months visibly reacted. Not in a response I'd expected. Racers doing week to 3 week events can't consume enough to visibly look similar so appearance isn't the metric, IMO.

 

[Oldman]

French cycling isn't in the desperate need of hope that it was when Pauline came along. But that's also part of why it feels so convenient that Pauline return and immediately become the first French winner of Paris-Roubaix and of the Tour de France Femmes before she gets too old and starts to slow down. Because whoever it was that won it first for France was always going to become a big deal, but Pauline with her Olympic and World titles was already a big deal that makes it that bit bigger of a story.

There is only one Killy.

 

[proffate]

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.

Also this sounds like an argument for ditching wada. What is the basis for clean sport if not rider health?

 

[jmdirt]

WOOHOOO PFP!
Congrats!

 

[Oldman]

Also this sounds like an argument for ditching wada. What is the basis for clean sport if not rider health?

What's WADA got to do with monitoring body image? Netserk's comment had to be a joke.
Cycling in particular is competitive, ruthless...and is great to participate in. There is health and virtue to be found but that sounds like a different argument than two athletically lean competitors being compared like livestock.

 

[Cookster15]

Quick comment, no idea if his has already been asked: Not sure what the raw financial numbers show but I hope this race can grow to justify adding a second foray into the high mountain - the Pyrenees? Or else an ascent of Mt Ventoux on say stage 3 or 4? I think this would truly build interest.

 

[Andy262]

Oh come on LS, they had 24 hrs to prepare the PR event they already probably had contingencies for.

Of course the French are going to big this up. And this will be a fraction of what you get if the England football team ever win anything important.

 

[Netserk]

Also this sounds like an argument for ditching wada. What is the basis for clean sport if not rider health?

Sponsors.

And to better pursue non-medical excellence. Just like motors are banned despite not posing any health risk.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Quick comment, no idea if his has already been asked: Not sure what the raw financial numbers show but I hope this race can grow to justify adding a second foray into the high mountain - the Pyrenees? Or else an ascent of Mt Ventoux on say stage 3 or 4? I think this would truly build interest.

The race is too short to add another mountain range (I mean, 2-3 hard mountain stages out of 9 is ok). I think the Tour is becoming more popular and IMO rather sooner than later it will be expanded to 2 weeks. Then, who knows.

 

[Netserk]

The race is too short to add another mountain range (I mean, 2-3 hard mountain stages out of 9 is ok). I think the Tour is becoming more popular and IMO rather sooner than later it will be expanded to 2 weeks. Then, who knows.

Two weeks with two rest days, Friday to Sunday for a total of 15 stages. That should be possible within 10 years, maybe even 5. Then the femmes can finish in Paris as well.

 

[proffate]

Sponsors.

And to better pursue non-medical excellence. Just like motors are banned despite not posing any health risk.

Sponsors don't care if riders use methods that aren't banned. Drugs that are potentially dangerous are disallowed. The few that aren't (caffeine, minor painkillers, asthma meds under the supervision of a doctor), aren't.

Re: motors - not every rule in the book is there for safety. The reason you're not allowed to ride a recumbent doesn't have to do with safety. But that doesn't mean there must be no rules motivated by rider health and safety.

 

[proffate]

Why are the tactics so... crap? The descending and positioning skills are more inconsistent than in the men's peloton too. Is this because the top women don't come together to race often enough (fewer race days per year or career)? Don't they have DSes telling them what to do?