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The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will change dates subsequent yr as a result of a conflict on the worldwide calendar with the Olympic Video games in Paris in 2024.
The primary two editions of the Tour de France Femmes have been positioned in the course of the week that immediately follows the conclusion of the lads’s Tour de France; final yr, the ladies’s race was held from July 24-31.
This yr, the race is scheduled to happen from July 23-30. The route will start in Clermont-Ferrand and journey south into the Pyrenees with a mountaintop end on the iconic Tourmalet and a concluding with a time trial in Pau.
Nevertheless, in 2024, that spot on the calendar is occupied by the Olympic Video games, that are scheduled to happen from July 26 to August 11, with the lads’s and ladies’s particular person time trails on July 27, the lads’s street race on August 3 and the ladies’s street race on August 4.
Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme confirmed that the Tour de France Femmes would change dates in an interview with BiciPro (opens in new tab).
“In 2024, there would be the Olympics. The champions go to the Olympics within the wake of the Tour de France and so we’ve to vary the date. Final time one of many successes was that the Video games grew to become a ‘fourth week.'”
Cyclingnews reached out to ASO to substantiate the brand new date of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, they usually stated that the timing of the race on the worldwide calendar is “at the moment being thought of”.
It has been speculated that the Tour de France Femmes may happen both earlier than or in the course of the males’s occasion or even perhaps after the Olympic Video games.
The place of the Paris Olympics has additionally meant that ASO adjusted the dates of the lads’s Tour de France in the identical manner that it did forward of the Tokyo Olympics. Subsequently, the lads’s Grand Tour can be held per week earlier, from June 29 to July 19 subsequent yr, and with a Grand Depart in Florence and a end in Good slightly than Paris.
The ladies’s peloton raced their first official girls’s Tour de France stage race in 1984, received by American Marianne Martin. Champions of these early editions of the stage race additionally included Italy’s Marian Canins profitable in 1985 and 1986, and Jeannie Longo, profitable three titles from 1987 to 1989.https://www.cyclingnews.com/information/2024-tour-de-france-expected-to-start-in-tuscany-and-finish-in-nice/
“After we relaunched the Tour de France Femme avec Zwift, we stated to ourselves that we needed to create a long-lasting occasion, which might nonetheless be alive in 50 years, just like the Giro, just like the Tour… There have been many duels between Jeannie Longo and Maria Canins within the 80s: they existed, they usually have been actual,” Prudhomme stated.
“Solely sadly, for financial causes, the demonstration stopped, and all subsequent occasions in France finally all stopped for financial causes. So we needed a balanced occasion the primary yr [2022 Tour de France Femmes]. An occasion that had an influence for the longer term. However for it to be, the financial facet is clearly elementary.”
The primary version of the brand new Tour de France Femmes was a resounding success when it comes to racing and fanfare, but additionally branding and marketability. The media, fan presence, and curiosity spoke volumes to the race’s reputation internationally.
In whole, there have been practically 20 million viewers in France throughout the eight days of racing, with a mean per stage of two.25 million on France 2 and France 3 delivering an viewers share of 26.4%, in line with official Tour de France Femmes figures. The finale alone, the place Van Vleuten took victory atop La Tremendous Blanche des Belles Filles, was watched by greater than 5 million French viewers.
Prudhomme has hailed the primary version of the Tour de France Femmes as a hit and expects no much less within the 2023 and 2024 editions, even when it means shifting the race for one version to accommodate the Olympics. He additionally recalled the success of Parix-Roubaix Femmes in October 2021, which had been postponed twice after which held off the again of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The candidacy of the cities was unimaginable. We noticed it after the primary version: it was a powerful success. We did not count on so many individuals on the roadside. We did not count on so many individuals in entrance of the tv. We should proceed. We now have to go additional. And that additionally means dealing with difficulties,” Prudhomme stated.
“In 2024, there would be the Olympics. The champions go to the Olympics within the wake of the Tour de France and so we’ve to vary the date. Final time one of many successes was that the Video games grew to become a “fourth week”. After the pandemic, there was the primary girls’s version of Paris-Roubaix, and that too was a hit past problem.”
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