The organisers of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift are in the final stages of preparation, 100 days before edition two commences on 23 July in Clermont-Ferrand. The director of the event, Marion Rousse and Christian Prudhomme announced the list of the 22 teams that will make up the peloton. With seven riders per team this year, the 154 starters will battle it out over eight days until the final finish line in Pau via the Tourmalet. The race was officially launched from the top of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, 100 days before the start of stage one in a loop in Clermont-Ferrand.
The battles have already started on the spring classics for the world’s elite peloton, but minds have been occupied for several months by the prospect of the second edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. The countdown is now well and truly on. Before heading for the Massif Central, the announcement event allowed Marion Rousse to reflect on the lessons learned from the first edition. “We were right to believe in it because it was really a fourth week of the Tour; all the elements were there“, explained the director of the event, who is just as enthusiastic when it comes to talking about the programme of the 2023 edition, which will still run over eight days, only this time, it will head towards the Pyrenees.
The exploration of the south-west of France will take the riders over the rugged terrain towards Mauriac in the Cantal, then Rodez in the Aveyron, but the difficulty level will increase as the altitude rises for the sequence of the Col d’Aspin and Tourmalet on the eve of the final stage. In 1910, The Tour de France experimented with high altitude on this stretch of passes. The big battle for the Yellow Jersey is expected to be fought on 29 July. “Whoever wins at the Tourmalet, I assure you that she will frame the photo“, predicts Marion Rousse about this all-important stage. The following day, the riders still in contention for the win will have to battle it out in a time trial in Pau, another historic venue of the Tour de France, with 73 appearances on the map since the first arrival in 1930.
“Femmes du Tour”, season 2
A second season of the series “Femmes du Tour”, which profiles leading female riders in the women’s peloton, accompanies edition two of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. In episode one, the film crews visited Marta Cavalli in Italy, the unfortunate heroine of the last Tour who is determined to turn things around this year.
