The new eight-day women’s Tour de France Femmes
announced for July 2022 is a significant and welcome
development.
But as tough as they claim it will be it seems to have
escaped everyone’s attention that it will be less than half the distance of the
original women’s Tour which spanned 17 stages over 18 days when it ran in the
Eighties.
Back in 1984 and 1985 the women’s race ran ahead of
the men, both sharing the grand finale on the Champs Elysees allowing the victors
– men and women – to enjoy the plaudits
of the crowds on the podium together.
1985 Tour finale (photo by Phil O'Connor) with the women and the men sharing the podium on the Champs Elysees, Maria Canins and Bernard Hinault the overall winners, Hinault for the fifth time. |
However, running the two Tours together proved a
logistical challenge, and was one reason why this format was discontinued.
Clearly, the 2022 course will be tough, but it still
falls far short of providing the women with proper Grand Tour.
The original version took in the Pyrenees and the
Alps, whereas next year’s event is limited to take in the Vosges Mountains
where it will finish on La Super Planche Des Belles Filles, which the men climb
a few weeks before.
The penultimate stage is also a cracker, finishing
at the ski resort of Le Markstein. It features three tough climbs, Petit
Ballon, Col de Platzerwasel and Grand Ballon.
So it is good news that the vibrant and popular
women’s road racing scene has at last being rewarded with a “Tour de France”, almost
four decades after the first. One day perhaps the women will merit, a full Tour
de France
The women’s 2022 Tour will start on the
Champs Elysees on the same day the men’s race, finishes there.
To summarise, it will comprise four flat stages, two
over hilly terrain and two mountain stages.
"It's a balanced route that will suit several types of
riders," said women's race director Marion Rousse.
Men's Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said he hopes the
women's race will have longevity on the calendar, but making it a financial
success could prove tough.
"If it had been [sustainable], the women's Tour would have been
held for 40 years," said Prudhomme.
"The biggest challenge is to broadcast the race. We've done a good
job, with the race starting the same day as the men's race ends in Paris."
However tough the eight stages will be the race surely
cannot compare with the severity of those two first editions, in 1984 and 1985.
They were controversial in challenging the view -
held by men but not by women – that females couldn’t race a three-week race.
We know of course that women can and did so back
then, with fantastic racing.
“Fears of too high, too long, proved groundless,”
wrote American journalist Owen Mullholland who like me, covered both events.
So let’s take a trip back in time, to a
A proper Women’s Tour de France.
The
story has featured in a previous blog here, but it bears running again, to put
next year’s offer into its perspective.
The 1985 British team for the Tour de France Feminin: Catherine Swinnerton, Mandy Jones, Pauline Strong, Judith Painter, Maria Blower and Linda Gornall. (Photo by Phil O'Connor) |
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saw the creation of a three-week long women’s Tour. Although it was repeated in
1985, that’s as good it got for women’s stage racing.
Looking back across the four decades since, women’s
professional road racing has developed and grown impressively but there is
still a way to go before women share parity with the men, unlike in Triathlon,
for instance.
Not since 1985 have the women had a decently long
stage race!
In that first women’s Tour of 1984, Britain’s
Judith Painter was a revelation. She was third on stage 12 at Grenoble in the
Alps and second on stage 14 at La Plagne.
The overall winner was American Marianne Martin.
The 1985 Tour de France Feminin was won by Italy’s Maria Canins, the former
cross-country skier.
These two three week Tours each totalled 748-miles and they were a
triumph for women’s road racing. They ought to have become the benchmark by which
women’s cycle sport could develop. But
the chauvinists in the UCI world governing body thought women weren’t capable
of riding such distances!
The UCI ruled
that the 1984 Tour was too long for women, and introduced a new rule that
restricted women to racing 12 stages.
But the UCI were out smarted by the 1985 Tour
organisers. They complied with the UCI by running a 12-stage race, and then
simply added a five-stage race at the end of it, with a rest day in-between!
The first event was called the A-event, or Tour National
while the second event, the B-event, they called the Champs Elysees.
Voila! They had 17 days of racing!
The women’s tour ran two hours ahead of the men,
over the same course, but starting further along it and finishing at the same
place.
There were two classifications, one for each of the
women’s tours. The first race was
decided on overall time, the second on points. And the organisers cleverly
combined the two results to decide the overall winner of both!
Canins won five stages in total, including two in
the Alps and one in the Pyrenees and took the climbers award.
France’s Jeannie Longo was second in both events and
therefore second overall.
It was a tough event, stages of 60 miles and more.
From 72 starters there were 65 finishers.
Clearly, women were capable of competing in long
stage races.
They were great events. I know! We’d drive out at the head of the men’s Tour,
and catch up the women, following them awhile and seeing the action, before
overtaking to get the press room well ahead to set up the evening’s work.
But it was not to be. The organisers cited technical
difficulties of running two events on one day over the same course.
After 1985, the Tour got smaller and smaller, down
to 10 stages, then five. Britain’s
Nicole Cooke won the 2006/7 editions, and Emma Pooley the 2009 race which was
over four stages. After which it was discontinued, remerging – but only after a
huge outcry from the women - in 2014 as
a one-day circuit race on the Champs Elysees, called La Course.
It was the 2012 London Olympics women’s road race
which proved a catalyst for recent changes after their race proved more
exciting to watch than the men’s!
Especially after Britain’s Lizzie Armitstead (now Deignan) won a
silver medal – behind Marianne Vos of Holland – whereas the British men failed
to deliver.
Armitstead’s silver in that showcase event led the
Tour of Britain men’s race organisers, Sweetspot, to introduce the first
women’s British Tour in 2014, still running today.
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