{"id":291068,"date":"2025-07-25T16:48:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T16:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291068\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T16:48:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T16:48:18","slug":"tour-de-france-femmes-2025-preview-5-key-talking-points-ahead-of-the-grand-depart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291068\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France Femmes 2025 preview: 5 key talking points ahead of the Grand Depart"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift gets under way this weekend, with the race expanded to nine stages. <\/p>\n

Having switched teams and signed for FDJ-Suez, Demi Vollering will be bidding to go one better than in the 2024 Tour, when she finished second to Katarzyna Niewiadoma.<\/p>\n

With founding partner Zwift this week releasing a report<\/a> that hailed a ‘golden era’ of women’s cycling, there are plenty of talking points going into the 2025 Tour. <\/p>\n

Here are five hot topics to pique your interest before the Grand Depart in Vannes on Saturday.<\/p>\n

1. More, more, more\u2026
\n\"TourMore is more for the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. Dario Belingheri \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

This 2025 edition has more of everything. There\u2019s one more stage \u2013 nine instead of last season\u2019s eight.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more climbing \u2013 over 17,000m and a mountain-fest from stage five onwards.<\/p>\n

There’s greater anticipation, after last year\u2019s humdinger of a final stage left something of a season-ending cliffhanger.<\/p>\n

Above all, however, there\u2019s more competition for that coveted yellow jersey.<\/p>\n

Road world champion Lotte Kopecky returns after missing last year’s race to focus on the Olympics and, with a previous podium finish under her belt, has the potential for great things in this race.<\/p>\n

Two past stars of the road, Anna van der Breggen and Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot, have come out of retirement and exile, respectively, to sample a taste of this brilliant race, while youngsters such as Gaia Realini and Cat Ferguson are part of an exciting new generation.<\/p>\n

2. Two steps forward, one back for PFP<\/p>\n

\"PaulinePauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot needs her Paris-Roubaix form over nine stages. Luc Claessen \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cPauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot had a great spring, but La Vuelta Femenina is the real test of her comeback,\u201d wrote cyclingnews.com prior to the season\u2019s biggest stage race to date in May.<\/p>\n

But by the end of stage four, the Frenchwoman had withdrawn from the race, having lost time on the final climb.<\/p>\n

Her coach, Jos van Emden, said that it wasn\u2019t a climb she should have been dropped on, given her lofty ambitions for the race.<\/p>\n

After winning Paris-Roubaix, the 2024 MTB Olympic champion \u2013 who returned to road cycling in 2025 after years out, had been backed by plenty to win the Tour de France Femmes.<\/p>\n

Her performance at the Vuelta, however, is a reminder of the size of her task, especially when race favourite Demi Vollering cruised to a summit win on stage five.<\/p>\n

Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot later said an ankle infection meant she wasn\u2019t in top form. <\/p>\n

\"3rdThe 2024 Tour saw the smallest gap between the top two yet. Alex Broadway \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

For the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, the addition of a ninth stage might seem like a small tweak, but symbolically it\u2019s a huge step forward.<\/p>\n

Nine stages sees it overtake the Giro d\u2019Italia Women as the longest race (in stages and distance) on the Women\u2019s WorldTour calendar.<\/p>\n

If it already felt like the biggest event of the season, this cements it in numbers. Organisers ASO have done a shrewd job with its development.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t start too big and are happy to see it evolve naturally and gradually as interest in the race grows.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s finale, which saw the closest gap between the top two in Tour de France Femmes history, saw the race climb another rung or two up the ladder, and it could receive a further leg-up according to Le Parisien.<\/p>\n

The French daily newspaper reported that we might see a return of Tour de France: Unchained, the Netflix series that followed the men\u2019s race but was cancelled earlier this year, this time following the women\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

It\u2019d be a further sign of the times in the booming world of women\u2019s road racing.<\/p>\n

4. Coming to the UK\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to the sixth Tour de France Femmes in 2027 for something very special indeed.<\/p>\n

The race \u2013 who knows how many stages it\u2019ll be by then \u2013 will start in the UK, the first time it will have ventured outside mainland Europe and the first time it\u2019ll share a Grand D\u00e9part location with the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unknown yet, beyond the men\u2019s race beginning in Edinburgh, where exactly the races will head, although England, Scotland and Wales will all see action.<\/p>\n

Further details will be announced in the autumn.<\/p>\n

The Women\u2019s Tour of Britain has always entertained huge crowds, and, given its importance, the Tour de France Femmes start will be of a whole different magnitude.<\/p>\n

The impact of hosting major sporting events always comes with the caveat of legacy \u2013 how will this boost the sport in the long-term and is there a better way of spending the cash?<\/p>\n

UK Sport, the body in charge of distributing public money to Olympic and Paralympic sport, says a \u201clandmark social impact programme\u201d in the run-up to the events will aim to tackle inactivity and provide lasting benefits for anyone who rides a bike.<\/p>\n

\n5. Vollering returns with a vengeance\n<\/p>\n

\"DemiDemi Vollering has moved from SD Worx in search of Tour success. Charly_Lopezedit \/ ASO<\/p>\n

With a new team (FDJ-Suez), new motivations and free of the burdensome team dynamics that blighted her final year at SD Worx-Protime, Demi Vollering returns to the Tour de France Femmes looking to right the wrongs of the 2024 race.<\/p>\n

A crash on stage five last year saw her lose crucial time, hand the race lead to eventual winner Kasia Niewiadoma and affected her condition for the remainder of the race.<\/p>\n

That she wasn\u2019t helped to chase back to the peloton by her teammates after the crash perhaps said a lot about her status in the team, given she\u2019d signalled her intention to leave earlier in the season.<\/p>\n

Niewiadoma showed admirable skill and courage to defend her slender lead on the final stage last year, but without that crash (or simply a better rearguard action by Vollering\u2019s teammates immediately following the incident), Vollering would have been a clear favourite for her second title.<\/p>\n

Crashes are part of racing, however \u2013 ifs, buts and maybes don\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

Yet, given the same crash this year, it\u2019s hard to see Vollering\u2019s new teammates leaving her to fend for herself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift gets under way this weekend, with the race expanded to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-291068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114914899124183280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}