Tour de France Femmes 2024

Updated: January 29, 2024

Everything you need to know about the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2024

The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is the biggest stage race in women’s professional cycling, and will take place from August 12 to August 18 in 2024, slightly after the men’s race to accommodate the Paris 2024 Olympics. As the name suggests, the Tour de France Femmes is the women’s version of the world’s most famous cycling race, the Tour de France. Though shorter, at eight stages, it takes in a similar format to the men’s event, featuring sprinting, time trials and decisive mountain stages in the iconic French mountains.

Along with the Giro d'Italia Women and the Vuelta Femenina, the Tour de France Femmes is part of the trio of races that make up the women's equivalent Grand Tours, and are the most important stage races on the calendar.

The Tour de France Femmes and its yellow jersey are the domain of the biggest names in the women’s peloton, with Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) and Demi Vollering (SD Worx) winning the first two editions respectively, whilst Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx), Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) and Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) have all won stages and worn the famous maillot jaune.

In 2024, the race will head into its third edition, and the next step as ASO look to build a long-lasting and growing race that will be at the centre of women’s cycling for years to come. The biggest step-up for the 2024 edition will be the race’s first foreign Grand Départ, as the Tour heads to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. What will follow will be eight varied stages over seven days of racing, before a climb-heavy finale in the Alps that will decide the third winner of the Tour de France Femmes.

Read more:

• Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2024 route revealed
• Demi Vollering: I’ve always wanted to ride Alpe d’Huez
• Opinion: The Tour de France Femmes is delivering on its promises of growth
• Where the 2024 Tour de France Femmes will be won
• Tour de France Femmes 2024: can anyone beat Demi Vollering to a second victory?
• Pauline Ferrand-Prévot: I would like to do the Tour de France Femmes one year
• 'I miss the pressure' - Lizzie Deignan targets Tour de France Femmes and Olympic Games

Tour de France Femmes 2024 schedule, past results & previous winners

When is the Tour de France Femmes 2024? The Tour de France Femmes will start on August 12, 2024 and finish on August 18, 2024.

Where does the Tour de France Femmes take place? The Tour de France Femmes will take place primarily in France, but in 2024 the race will start in the Netherlands, its first-ever foreign Grand Départ.

Who won the Tour de France Femmes in 2023? The 2023 race was won by Demi Vollering (SD Worx) ahead of her teammate Lotte Kopecky, and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM). Vollering took the lead with a big victory on the Col du Tourmalet.

Who won the first Tour de France Femmes? The first edition of the Tour de France Femmes in 2022 was won by Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) after a commanding performance on the mountainous final weekend.

Tour de France Femmes 2024 route: Alpe d'Huez finale awaits after Dutch départ

The route for the 2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will feature the most famous Alpine climb of them all, Alpe d'Huez, for the first time in its history.

After departing Rotterdam, the Tour de France Femmes' first Grand Départ, the route offers something for everyone with sprint opportunities and a 6.3km-long time trial before a decisive doubleheader in the Alps.

The full route of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift was officially revealed on October 25 by race organisers ASO. Taking in three countries over seven days and eight stages, the race has a total distance of 946.3km - the shortest overall route so far in the race's history.

The most eye-catching feature of the route for the 3rd edition of the Tour de France Femmes is the inclusion of Alpe d'Huez, a somewhat logical next step after the first two editions featured the Planche des Belles Filles and Col du Tourmalet as their respective Queen stages.

However, neither offer the test that the Alpe provides. At 13.8km in length and with an average gradient of 8.5% across its 21 famous hairpins, the climb is the perfect place to determine the third owner of Tour de France Femmes' maillot jaune. Stage 8 includes 3,900m of climbing in total, with the Col du Glandon serving as the highest point across the eight stages at 1,924m.

© ASO

The Tour de France Femmes will culminate atop Alpe d'Huez for the first time

It's not just the final day that will test the climbers though, with four mountain ranges included in the 2024 route: the Ardennes, Vosges, Jura and Alps. Stage 7 on the penultimate day is likely to serve as a perfect warm-up for the Queen stage, leaving the Jura and tackling five categorised climbs on the way to Le Grand-Bornand.

Before the weekend finale in the mountains though, there's Classics-style days and a short time trial to contend with for the riders.

A Dutch Grand Départ in Rotterdam, the largest port city in the world, will offer sprint opportunities from the get-go, provided crosswinds from the North Sea don't blow the race apart. A split stage on day two features a short individual time trial in the afternoon, much less decisive than last year's final day TT though. At 6.3km and tackled on wide, non-technical roads, it will be a stage for the specialists to flourish.

Leaving the Netherlands behind on stage 4, the race will enter the north of France via Belgium, with a Classics-style 122km stage from Valkenburg to Liège swamped in history. The Cauberg, Geulhemmerberg and two ascents of the Bemmelerberg are tackled early on before some of Liège-Bastogne-Liège's most iconic climbs are thrown into the mix for good measure too. Mont-Theux, the Côte de la Redoute, the Côte des Forges and the Côte de la Roche aux Faucons all feature before a downhill finish in Liège.

With this mixture of Classics-style and high mountains stages, the 2024 Tour de France Femmes is spoiling us in terms of entertainment. What it lacks in length being 14km shorter than the 2023 edition and 67km less than the inaugural route, it makes up for in diversity with opportunities for just about any rider, whether that be on the cobbles of the Ardennes or the steep slopes of Alpe d'Huez.

Who are the riders to watch at the Tour de France Femmes 2024?

As the biggest stage race on the women’s calendar, the Tour de France Femmes is the race that everyone wants to go to, and as a result we can expect a star-studded list of all the very best riders to line up in Rotterdam next August. Some will be just happy to start, but others will be targeting stage wins, a jersey, or the overall.

Atop the list of riders to watch will most certainly be defending overall champion Demi Vollering (SD Worx). In the absence of 2022 winner Annemiek van Vleuten, Vollering will be the only former winner of the race in the bunch, and will have her eyes set firmly on a second-consecutive victory. With easily the best stage racing pedigree of the current pros, and the world’s best team surrounding her, it’s not hard to imagine that the Dutchwoman will pull that feat off.

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Demi Vollering improved on her second place in 2022 to win the 2023 Tour de France Femmes

Hoping to improve on her back-to-back third-place finishes will be Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), who looks likely to be one of Vollering’s main rivals. The Polish rider excelled on the Tourmalet stage of the 2023 race, and is the kind of rider who can be there on the climbs but also - crucially - be aggressive on the punchier stages, which is important when it comes to winning a week-long race such as the Tour.

Outside of the riders who already have wins and podium finishes under their belt, there is a big group of riders who will be hoping to step onto the Tour podium for the first time in 2024. FDJ-SUEZ will have Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and Marta Cavalli to choose between, Jayco-AlUla will look to new arrival Mavi García to chase the overall, whilst dsm-firmenich will be counting on home favourite Juliette Labous, who often shines in stage races.

As a team, Lidl-Trek have perhaps the most options: will Giro d’Italia Donne podium finisher Gaia Realini make her debut? Could Elisa Longo Borghini make a proper attempt at the overall? Or will proven climber Amanda Spratt be their leader? With plenty of strength and options for stage wins too, the American team will be hoping to challenge SD Worx and Demi Vollering’s grip on this race.

Which teams are racing the Tour de France Femmes 2024?

The 2024 Tour de France Femmes will see all 15 Women’s WorldTour teams line up for the start in the Netherlands, plus the two highest-ranked Continental teams, and a selection of five other Continental teams, most likely including several French squads.

• SD Worx
• Lidl-Trek
• dsm-firmenich
• FDJ-SUEZ
• Movistar
• Canyon-SRAM
• UAE Team ADQ
• Jumbo-Visma
• Jayco-AlUla
• Fenix-Deceuninck
• Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling
• AG Insurance-Soudal Quick-Step
• Israel Premier Tech Roland
• Uno-X
• Human Powered Health
• Cofidis (TBC)
• Tashkent City (TBC)
• EF Education-Cannondale (TBC)
• Lifeplus-Wahoo (TBC)
• Arkéa Pro Cycling (TBC)
• St Michel-Mavic-Auber93 (TBC)
• Team Coop-Hitec Products (TBC)

Tour de France Femmes jerseys

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

The jersey winners at the 2023 Tour de France Femmes

The special jerseys and classifications at the women’s Tour de France are exactly the same as the ones on offer at the men’s race, bar a slight change in eligibility for the young riders’ jersey.

Yellow jersey (maillot jaune) - the iconic Tour de France yellow jersey is given to the overall leader of the general classification, the rider who has completed the stages so far in the shortest time possible.

Polka dot jersey (maillot à pois) - the polka dot jersey is awarded to the leader of the Queen of the Mountains competition. Rather than time, this competition is based on points, with varying tallies of points available for the first rider to the summit of each categorised climb on the route.

Green jersey (maillot vert) - the green jersey denotes the sprint competition, and is once again decided on points, with scoring available at the finishes of stages and intermediate sprints, with the finishes of flat stages carrying the bulk of the points.

White jersey (maillot blanc) - the white jersey goes to the best young rider in the general classification. At the Tour de France Femmes, a young rider is defined as those 23 and under.

What happened in the Tour de France Femmes 2023?

The Tour de France Femmes 2023 was won by Demi Vollering, who took the yellow jersey from her teammate Lotte Kopecky by winning the climactic Col du Tourmalet stage, after Kopecky had put in an impressive performance to lead the race up until that point.

After taking nearly two minutes on the Tourmalet, all Vollering had to do was defend that lead on the final-day time trial around Pau, and she duly did, finishing behind stage winner and teammate Marlen Reusser to secure her win and upgrade her second-place finish from 2022.

Though the likes of Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes did win stages, the race will also be remembered for the string of underdog wins that defined the middle of week. Young riders Yara Kastelijn and Ricarda Bauernfeind both took maiden WorldTour wins in France with impressive solo performances, whilst a spirited breakaway ride from Emma Norsgaard saw her hold off the peloton on the line to win the sixth stage.

To explore all the results, highlights and stories from the 2023 Tour de France Femmes, head over to our race home.

Tour de France Femmes history

With how prestigious the race already is, it’s easy to forget that the Tour de France Femmes avec Femmes is only two years old. Added to the calendar in 2022 after much clamour for a women’s Tour de France, the race was announced in 2021, and the first edition took place the following summer, with a sophomore, stepped-up edition coming in 2023.

Prior to the Tour de France Femmes, ASO’s offering for the women’s peloton was La Course by Le Tour, though even this was a recent invention. La Course was launched in 2014 after a campaign by Marianne Vos, Emma Pooley, Chrissie Wellington and Kathryn Bertine, and was originally a circuit race around the Champs-Élysées on the final day of the men’s Tour, though later editions were held in the mountains and elsewhere, during the men’s race. It was meant to evolve gradually into a proper stage race, but this didn’t really happen, bar one attempt at a two-day event 2017.

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Perhaps fittingly, Marianne Vos won the first edition of La Course

However, the history of the women’s Tour de France goes back much further than the ASO’s involvement. We can find examples of women’s Tours de France as far back as the 1950s, and several editions of the Tour de France Féminin were held in the 1980s. These 80s races featured hard courses, often tackling most of the same stages and climbs that the men’s race did, making them long and difficult - truly Grand Tours. These races struggled to survive, though - especially once they were banned from using the ‘Tour de France’ name - and through the 90s and 2000s, races like the Route de France and the Tour de l’Ardèche were the closest the women’s peloton had to a French Grand Tour.

Read more: Tour de France Femmes: A brief history of the events which paved the way

Previous winners of the Tour de France Femmes

2023 Demi Vollering (SD Worx)
2022 Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar)

La Course by Le Tour winners

2021 Demi Vollering (SD Worx)
2020 Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo)
2019 Marianne Vos (CCC Liv)
2018 Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott)
2017 Annemiek van Vleuten (Orica-Scott)
2016 Chloe Hosking (Wiggle High5)
2015 Anna van der Breggen (Rabo-Liv)
2014 Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv)

Explore more about the 2024 Tour de France Femmes by clicking on the route, startlist and standings tabs up above.

Major Races

See All

Date	Event	Class
29 Jun - 21 Jul	Tour de France	2.UWT
12 Aug - 18 Aug	Tour de France Femmes	2.WWT
4 May - 26 May	Giro d'Italia	2.UWT
28 Apr - 5 May	Vuelta España Femenina	2.WWT

Provided by FirstCycling