Not a proper Tour de France

 

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)

I984 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.