Five teams awarded Tour de France Femmes wildcard invitations

Organisers of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift named the 22 teams who will compete in the second edition of the race this year. In addition to the WorldTour teams, the Ceratizit-WNT and Lifeplus Wahoo teams earned automatic entries as the top two Continental teams.

The ASO awarded five wildcard invitations on Friday for the Belgian squad AG Insurance-Soudal Quickstep, French teams Arkéa, Cofidis and St Michel Mavic-Auber 93 and the Norwegian team Coop-Hitec Products.

It is nearly the same lineup of teams as in 2022, except with Coop-Hitec Products taking the place of Parkhotel Valkenburg, who was not invited this year.

The second edition of the revived women's Tour de France is 100 days away, beginning on July 23 on the same day as the men's finale in Paris.

Unlike last year, the women will start in a different city from the men's stage, kicking off in Clermont-Ferrand and finishing in Pau on July 30.

For the first time, the women will venture into the high mountains of the Pyrenees with a stage finishing on the Col du Tourmalet and the final day's time trial in Pau, the main decisive stages.

The Movistar Team returns as defending champions after Annemiek van Vleuten's dominant performance last year. Other WorldTeams include EF Education-TIBCO, FDJ-SUEZ, Fenix-Deceuninck, Human Powered Health, Israel Premier Tech Roland, Liv Racing Teqfind, Team DSM, Jayco-AlUla, Jumbo-Visma, SD Worx, Trek-Segafredo, UAE Team ADQ and Uno-X.