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The Tour de France Femmes arrives for a 3rd version in 2024 and gives alternatives on eight phases in seven days for any of the 154 riders within the 22-team peloton to earn private glory, obtain crew targets and etch their achievements within the historical past books but once more. Sprinters start the proceedings for the primary yellow jersey with a flat trio of openers in The Netherlands. Then the hills hit on stage 4 in Belgium and the climbers march into France for the ultimate showdown on Alpe d’Huez.
Together with the brand new territory for the Tour are new riders, greater than 50 of them making first-time appearances on the Grand Tour. Amongst them are a number of riders recent from the Paris Olympic Video games, together with multi-discipline medallist Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM), Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime), who was fourth within the ladies’s highway race, and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck), who was fourth within the ladies’s cross-country MTB occasion.
Age makes no distinction in terms of making first impressions. One of the veteran riders on the beginning record this 12 months is 31-year-old Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Well being), who retired in 2021 and now in her return to racing will get an opportunity to compete within the Tour.
There are 20 riders beneath the age of 23, and two of them are cyclocross stars – Pieterse and Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease a Bike) – the present World Champion within the self-discipline. Neither have lots of stage racing expertise, so to step into the highlight on the world’s greatest theatre for highway ought to add a major storyline.
Here’s a record of a number of the standout debutants at this 12 months’s Tour de France Femmes, only a few riders who may simply make an influence on particular person phases and with crew techniques for classification battles.
Chloé Dygert and Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM)
Canyon-SRAM’s Kasia Niewiadoma delivered a 3rd place within the GC and the mountain classification title final 12 months, because the German Ladies’s WorldTour squad chased a dominant Crew SD Worx the complete race. This 12 months Niewiadoma can have the dynamic duo of Neve Bradbury and Olympic medallist Chloé Dygert on debut to amp up the cost for GC and stage wins.
Bradbury, third on GC on the Giro d’Italia this 12 months, took victory up the demanding Blockhaus mountain stage to announce herself as a top-tier climber and contendor. Looming for the finale of this 12 months’s Tour is the enduring Alpe d’Huez climb, which has been current in 32 Excursions de France. That is the primary time in years that the professional ladies’s peloton has completed atop the 21 switchbacks.
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“I’m wanting ahead to stage eight, which finally ends up Alpe D’Huez. It’s much like the stage I gained on the Giro,” Bradbury famous.
Dygert is recent off two podium appearances for Crew USA on the Paris Olympic Video games, the place she earned a bronze within the particular person time trial on the highway and a gold within the Crew Pursuit on the monitor. And she or he might have contested for a medal within the highway race had it not been for a crash that held her again in fifteenth. She had a stable 12 months in Grand Excursions final 12 months with three podiums at La Vuelta Femenina and two podiums on the Giro d’Italia Donne, nevertheless it’s Tour de France Femmes success that she now appears to.
Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek)
In her debut with Lidl-Trek final 12 months at age 22, the younger Italian made the UAE Tour and Giro d’Italia Donne her assertion stage races, taking second within the former behind teammate Elisa Longo Borghini and ending third on GC and the mountains classification within the latter.
Fourth on the Jebel Hafeet end at UAE Tour Ladies and netting fourth total to begin 2024, Realini continued to shine with podiums on mountain phases at Setmana Valenciana, Vuelta Extremadura Féminas after which the Tour de Suisse Ladies. On the opening day of the Swiss stage race, she climbed to second behind Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) and carried that momentum to a GC high 10 and second place within the mountains classification.
At one other Giro, she was seventh total as Longo Borghini took the win, with the younger climber ending within the high 10 on the Blockhaus climb on stage 7. She’ll look to soar once more on the climbs at this 12 months’s Tour de France Femmes, particularly on the again half of the weeklong race with an uphill end to Amnéville on stage 5, a quintet of categorised climbs on stage 6 and the back-to-back mountaintop finishes at Le Grand-Bornand and Alpe d’Huez.
Clean Vas and Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime)
Two rising stars within the Ladies’s WorldTour get alternatives to experience the Tour de France Femmes for the primary time, Niamh Fisher-Black and Blanka Vas, named to the top-ranked SD Worx-Protime squad to assist chief Demi Vollering defend her title. Each may also assist the Dutch squad make a press release on the opening three phases, scheduled throughout two days on dwelling soil together with the Grand Départ in Rotterdam.
Fisher-Black, who turns 24 on August 12, will showcase her climbing talents on the Tour, because the abundance of hilly terrain is the place she thrives. At this 12 months’s Giro d’Italia Ladies, she gained the uphill battle to Toano on stage 3, which vaulted her into the GC high 5. With a seventh place on Blockhaus, she would end for a fourth 12 months within the high 10 of the GC.
Her first alternative to do one thing particular on the Tour will probably be stage 4 with a end that replicates the finale from this 12 months’s Liège-Bastogne-Liege, the place Fisher-Black was tenth.
“Niamh Fisher-Black is there to assist Demi Vollering. The climbing work is her territory and will probably be her job to help Demi Vollering as a lot as attainable within the final two to a few difficult phases. She has made strides and tanked confidence with a WorldTour-level win on the Giro d’Italia,” stated Sports activities Supervisor Danny Stam when the roster was introduced in August.
Each riders made debuts on the Olympic Video games, with Vas ending fourth for Hungary within the dash for medals within the highway race. She has power throughout various terrain, which she demonstrated with a stage win on an uphill end eventually 12 months’s Giro d’Italia Donne and added a runner-up end result on a rolling stage at this 12 months’s Vuelta España.
“Blanka Vas is an excellent versatile rider, ideally suited for the various course of this Tour de France Femmes. She will go lengthy uphill, she will additionally stand her floor within the sprints. And if she slips right into a breakaway, she might be harmful,” Stam famous.
Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck)
The multi-discipline Dutch star put a lot of her focus for 2024 on the flat bars after incomes a bronze medal within the elite ladies’s class on the Cyclocross World Championships. The 22-year-old competed in eight one-day highway races within the spring, then moved to the UCI World Cup mountain bike sequence, passing the under-23 division to the elites to qualify for her first Olympic Video games. She scored three World Cup podiums and went on to complete one spot off the rostrum in Paris within the cross-country MTB occasion.
Pieterse appears to make her assertion in her first Tour, which can be the primary stage race in her highway profession. In her eight highway begins for Fenix-Deceuninck this spring, she got here away with seven high 10s, together with podiums at Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Ronde van Drenthe. Final 12 months her compatriot and teammate Yara Kastelijn gained the Tour de France Femmes stage 4 from a solo breakaway into Rodez for her first professional highway win, so Pieterse will look to comply with swimsuit for an aggressive Feni-Deceuninck outfit.
Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease a Bike)
The Visma-Lease a Bike squad will probably be led by Marianne Vos and Riejanne Markus, with the previous being recent off a silver medal within the highway race on the Paris Olympic Video games. A part of a robust squad supporting Vos’s efforts to put on the yellow jersey in her dwelling Netherlands, as she did for six days in 2022, will probably be Fem van Empel. The 21-year-old is the reigning elite ladies’s cyclocross World Champion and will probably be one to observe within the mid-week hilly phases.
In her first highway season with Visma final 12 months, Van Empel completed eleventh on the Giro d’Italia Donne. At this 12 months’s Giro, she crashed on stage 5 and couldn’t proceed. With time away from racing and a recent reboot, she is among the younger wildcards to observe.
She’s received extra expertise than CX rival and good friend Pieterse, having additionally starred within the inaugural ladies’s Tour de l’Avenir final summer time, the place she took a stage win, the inexperienced jersey and helped Shirin van Anrooij to total victory for the Netherlands.
Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Well being)
US rider Ruth Edwards will probably be a rider to observe as she is going to look to copy the climbing success she achieved at this 12 months’s Giro d’Italia Ladies. Edwards climbed to a pair of stage runner-up spots within the mountains, stage 6 to Chieti on the longest day of the Giro, 159km, and two days in a while the hilly experience to L’Aquila. The crew calls her potential to get into breakaways “a testomony to her race IQ”.
Simply earlier than taking up her fifth Giro, Edwards gained the general on the Lotto Thüringen Girls Tour. She appears to regulate to only about any terrain and might keep her ambition and health for the lengthy haul. Endurance is considered one of her strengths, which she demonstrated with quite a few gravel race victories when she was away from highway racing for 2 years. Retirement didn’t imply leisure for Edwards, simply recharge.
Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes – together with breaking information and evaluation reported by our journalists on the bottom from each stage because it occurs and extra. Discover out extra.
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