a longer race with a route from Brittany to the Alps – Libération

2024-10-29 11:28:00

From July 26 to August 3, the women’s Tour de France will cross France from west to east. For the first time in 2025 the race will last nine days, one more than previous editions.

After three successful summers, the extension. For the 2025 edition of the women’s Tour de France, the fourth since the return of the women’s grand tour in 2022, the race is working overtime: nine days of racing are scheduled compared to the usual eight. On Tuesday 29 October, in Paris, Marion Rousse and Christian Prudhomme, director and race director, presented a route of 1,165 km in total that will take runners across France from west to east.

Unlike last summer, when much of the Tour took place in the Netherlands and Belgium, the 2025 edition will remain in France. The start of the first stage will be in the port of Vannes, in Morbihan, on July 26, with arrival in Plumelec in a final circuit made up of several small hills. The Tour will stop for a second stage in Brittany (between Brest and Quimper) before heading to Angers (Maine-et-Loire) then to Poitiers (Vienne) for the two stages promised to the sprinters.

Waiting for Pauline Ferrand-Prévot

As in 2024, the road will rise especially in the second part of the race. There will first be two medium mountain stages starting from Clermont-Ferrand (which hosted the big start of the 2023 women’s Tour) and Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain). Then two more high mountains to end in the Alps, like last year. The final arrival will be in the heart of the town of Châtel, in Haute-Savoie. We should see the Dutch Demi Vollering, 2nd in 2022 and 2024 and winner of the general classification in 2023, who has just signed for two seasons with the French team FDJ-Suez, and the Polish Katarzyna Niewiadoma, holder of the title.

This Tour will also mark the great return of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. The French runner with an immense palmares (she has around fifteen world titles to her credit in various disciplines), recently crowned Olympic cross-country champion, is back on the road after the Paris Games (where she won gold in mountain biking) to do the Great Loop with the Dutch team Visma-Lease a Bike.