{"id":293280,"date":"2025-07-26T12:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T12:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/293280\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T12:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T12:30:12","slug":"its-a-pinch-me-moment-british-teenager-to-make-tour-de-france-femmes-debut-as-races-youngest-rider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/293280\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s a pinch-me moment’ – British teenager to make Tour de France Femmes debut as race’s youngest rider"},"content":{"rendered":"

At just 19 years old, and still in her first season as a pro, Imogen Wolff<\/a> is quickly ticking off the calendar\u2019s biggest races; she rode Milan-San Remo<\/a> in March, the Tour of Flanders<\/a> and Paris-Roubaix<\/a> in April, and then her first week-long stage race in the Vuelta Femenina in May.<\/p>\n

Now, she\u2019s about to go even bigger. This Saturday afternoon, Wolff will make her debut at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift<\/a>, a milestone neo-pros rarely expect so early in their careers. She’ll also do so as the youngest of the 154 riders in the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really excited, looking forward to getting going,\u201d Wolff tells Cycling Weekly at the Grand D\u00e9part in Brittany. \u201cI want to race against the best field in the women\u2019s peloton, and I think that\u2019s what we have at this race. I feel really, really lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After emerging as one of the most promising junior talents in 2024, Wolff graduated straight to the WorldTour with Visma-Lease a Bike<\/a> this season. Her palmar\u00e8s counts two junior world titles on the track, a junior British time trial championship, a podium in the junior time trial at the UCI Road World Championships and, already in her pro career, an elite stage victory at a race in Spain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The call-up to race the Tour, she explains, came shortly after the Vuelta, two months ago. \u201cI knew maybe it was a possibility, and I just really wanted to prove that I deserved a spot on the team,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy coach flew out to Girona \u2013 he\u2019s also got a place there \u2013 and we rode together, and he was like, \u2018How\u2019s your French?\u2019\u201d she smiles. \u201cIt was a really nice moment. I rang my parents straightaway and told them.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the morning before her Tour debut, Wolff\u2019s mother sent her photos from the men\u2019s race in 2014, when she and her family watched at the roadside. That year, the event started in Yorkshire, with the peloton passing only a handful of miles from their home.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI still ride the climbs in the route all the time,\u201d Wolff says. \u201cMy dad and I used to do bikepacking trips, head to France, bikepack to the men\u2019s stages and try and get as many freebies from the caravan as possible. It was always a really special feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, it was always a dream to ride here, and for so long, it wasn\u2019t possible. Then the women\u2019s race came in, and I still didn\u2019t think it was possible. [Being here] is a pinch-me moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the next nine days, the teenager will be on \u201cfull domestique duties\u201d for her Visma-Lease a Bike team-mates. She\u2019ll help last year\u2019s green jersey winner Marianne Vos<\/a> in the sprints, and support Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot<\/a> in her bid for the GC.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to already be doing these big races, to have the experience and the learning,\u201d Wolff says.<\/p>\n

How does she feel about being the peloton’s youngest member? \u201cIt’s cool,\u201d she smiles. \u201cIt means I have a lot less experience, but I\u2019m lucky there\u2019s a lot of girls on my team that have so much experience \u2013 I can learn from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pressure is low for me. I just want to enjoy it and, it\u2019s clich\u00e9, but take it day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tour de France Femmes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At just 19 years old, and still in her first season as a pro, Imogen Wolff is quickly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-293280","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\/114919546812510680","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293280","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=293280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}