Tour de France Femmes 2025 - The GC favourites form guide
Analysing the key riders to watch in pursuit of the yellow jersey
ASO have unveiled the official route of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes that will cover 1,165km across nine days of racing, starting in Brittany on July 26 and travelling into the Alps to conclude atop Châtel on August 3.
The route does not include a time trial, but there are plenty of opportunities for every type of rider with two flat stages, three hilly stages, two medium-mountain stages and a finish with two back-to-back high mountain stages with key climbs over the Col de Madeleine, Col de Joux Plane, and a finale mountaintop finale at Châtel.
Although the event is months away, Cyclingnews looks at the riders who could likely be competing for their respective teams and who could contest for the coveted yellow jersey.
We will keep you up to date on each rider's form ranking throughout the 2025 season as the Women's WorldTour calendar heads toward the fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes.
Cyclingnews will have live coverage of all eight stages of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, along with race reports, galleries, results, and exclusive features and news.
1. Kasia Niewiadoma
Kasia Niewiadoma won the 2024 Tour de France by what she called a 'magical four seconds' after holding off the stage 8 winner Demi Vollering atop Alpe d'Huez to keep the yellow jersey in a dramatic finale.
It was a significant moment in cycling that marked the smallest margin of victory in both the women's and men's Tour de France history, beating the record set in the 1989 Tour de France as Greg Lemond beat Laurent Fignon by eight seconds to win.
Niewiadoma has said that she approves of the "balanced" route for the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, despite there not being a time trial, and that she aims to be the first rider to win the new version of the women's Tour de France twice in a row.
She also stood on the podium in the first two editions; 3rd overall (and won the mountains classification) in 2023 and 3rd overall in 2022.
Canyon-SRAM-zondacrypto have other cards to play and support riders for Niewiadoma in the mountains with Neve Bradbury, Ricarda Bauernfeind, Antonia Niedermaier and new signing Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, potentially giving the team even more fire power in 2025.
2. Demi Vollering
Demi Vollering wore the yellow jersey at the 2024 Tour de France Femmes for three stages, securing it after the stage 3 time trial in Rotterdam but then abruptly losing it to Kasia Niewiadoma after a crash on stage 5 into Amnéville.
Vollering tried to gain back the time lost in the finale stage 8 with an attack on the mid-stage Col du Glandon, which led to her win atop Alpe d'Huez, but it was not enough to hold off Niewiadoma, who won the overall title by just four seconds.
She moves from SD Worx-Protime to race for FDJ-SUEZ in 2025 and will have another shot at winning the Tour de France Femmes and will likely line up as the GC leader after winning the yellow jersey in the 2023 edition.
However, the team will have several cards to play with French riders Évita Muzic, who was fourth overall at the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, and FDJ-SUEZ new-signing Juliette Labous, who finished fourth overall in the 2022 edition.
3. Gaia Realini
Gaia Realini has become one of the top riders in the world in the last two seasons, showing her prowess on challenging summits.
She has proven as much during her time with Lidl-Trek with 3rd at Flèche Wallonne, 3rd overall at UAE Tour, La Vuelta Femenina and Giro d'Italia Women, all in 2023. She was also 3rd overall at the Tour de Romandie and fifth overall at the Tour de France Femmes in 2024.
The rider who joined Lidl-Trek from Isolmant-Premac-Vittoria at the start of 2023 made her debut at the Tour de France Femmes in 2024 where she took a leadership role. However, she was caught up in an untimely crash and required a bike change on the opening stage, then docked 20 seconds for drafting behind the vehicle for too long to get back up to the peloton. She used her climbing strengths during the final mountain stages and she finished fifth overall 2:19 behind Niewiadoma.
As Giro d'Italia winner and fellow Tour de France contender Elisa Longo Borghini has moved to UAE Team ADQ in 2025, Realini will be a likely candidate to once again lead the Lidl-Trek team at the Tour de France Femmes, alongside new signings Niamh Fisher-Black, who joins the team from SD Worx-Protime, and Riejanne Markus, who joins the team from Visma-Lease a Bike.
4. Elisa Longo Borghini
Elisa Longo Borghini has been a deserving leader for Lidl-Trek at the Tour de France Femmes in the first two editions, although her sixth place overall in 2022 turned to a DNF in 2023 after being diagnosed with a skin infection.
In 2024, Longo Borghini had one of her strongest seasons, winning the Tour of Flanders, and taking podiums at La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. She was also third overall at La Vuelta Femenina and Tour de Suisse Women, won the national championships, and then secured the maglia rosa a the Giro d'Italia Women.
Her season took a turn after that historical win, and she was disappointed with her top-10 performances at the Olympic Games, but things went further astray before the start of the Tour de France Femmes when it was announced that she wouldn't be lining up after a pre-race crash.
In 2025, Longo Borghini will be racing with UAE Team ADQ, in what was a surprise transfer. She will also be in a leadership role for the Spring Classics and Grand Tours, so watch for her to place a primary focus on the Tour de France Femmes.
5. Évita Muzic
Évita Muzic will remain one of the co-leaders of FDJ-SUEZ, even if the team have also signed Demi Vollering and Juliette Labous in 2025.
She has proven her strengths at the French Grand Tour, finishing 8th overall in 2022 and fourth overall in 2024. Her role as a contender for the Tour de France Femmes is only enhanced by the powerful addition of riders like Vollering and Labous, and the team is likely to line up with all three cards to play during the nine-day race.
In the past two seasons alone, she has risen to the occasion at many of the biggest races, 6th overall at La Vuelta Femenina in 2023 and fifth in 2024, where she won the stage to La Laguna Negra. Vinuesa and finished second on the stage to Valdesquí. Comunidad de Madrid.
She also finished second overall at Vuelta a Burgos and had a strong fourth place at La Flèche Wallonne, often racing head-to-head against the likes of Vollering, all in 2024.
She showed that she was one of the strongest and most consistent climbers at the Tour de France Femmes where she finished fifth into Le Grand Bornand and third atop Alpe d'Huez, to secure fourth place in the overall classification.
6. Pauliena Rooijakkers
Pauliena Rooijakkers turned heads at the 2024 Tour de France when she finished third overall, just behind the four-second battle between overall winner Kasia Niewiadoma and runner-up Demi Vollering.
She made the move from Canyon-SRAM to Fenix-Deceuninck in 2024, which gave her a solid opportunity to compete as a sole general classification leader in many of the big races on the WorldTour.
She has had strong results to back up this role in previous years with second overall at Itzulia Women in 2022 and multiple top performances across hilly one-day races.
However, 2024 was her best year with her new team finishing 6th overall at the UAE Tour, sixth at Flèche Wallonne, ninth overall at La Vuelta Femenina, fourth overall at the Giro d'Italia Women and 3rd overall at the Tour de France Femmes.
While Fenix-Deceuninck had another contender in Puck Pieterse, who won the best young rider classification, Rooijakkers was the most consistent in the mountains and was part of the final three chasing Vollering on Alpe d'Huez along with Niewiadoma and Muzic.
With climbing on the menu for the two final stages of the Tour de France Femmes in 2025, watch for Rooijakkers once again to show her consistency and play her tactical cards into Châtel.
7. Anna van der Breggen
Anna van der Breggen confirmed that she'll make a stunning return to road racing in 2025, three years after retiring.
She won the road race at the Olympics in 2016, three world titles in the road race in 2018 and then in the time trial and road race in 2020. Other career highlights include a record seven consecutive victories at La Flèche Wallonne, four overall titles at the Giro d'Italia, and Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold, and twice winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
She hung up her wheels at the end of the 2021 season to take on a directeur sportif role at SD Worx-Protime. But she'll be back in 2025, racing in SD Worx-Protime colours where she could potentially pick up where she left off as one of the top riders in the world.
The team have lost Demi Vollering to FDJ-SUEZ, but they retained reigning world champion Lotte Kopecky on a long-term deal through to the end of 2028.
Winning the Tour de France would fill a gap in Van der Breggen's extensive palmares, and she certainly has the racing experience to back up a yellow-jersey bid, but we won't know until she begins racing again how her form will develop into the spring and summer season.
8. Juliette Labous
Juliette Labous has become a French fan favourite at her home Tour de France and a podium hopeful, once again, for the 2025 edition.
She is a quiet contender, having slowly but steadily risen to become one of the best riders in the world over the previous eight seasons with the various versions of team Sunweb, Team DSM and now Team dsm-firmenich PostNL.
With the transfer to FDJ-SUEZ in 2025, Labous will be one of three contenders alongside Vollering and Muzic.
She has finished fourth, fifth and ninth overall at the Tour de France Femmes in the previous three editions, also earning the Virage Juliette as fans and members of Le Vélo Club Morteau Montbenoit celebrated with a bend on the Côte des Fins dedicated in her name on stage 6 in 2024.
She has made a conscious effort over recent years to improve her power on the climbs and in the time trial, which has made her a more complete rider suited to the longer stage races. Those efforts have paid off with the overall victory at Vuelta a Burgos in 2022 and the summit stage 7 victory atop Passo del Maniva at the Giro d'Italia Women, and then there was a telling second place overall at the Giro in 2023.
In 2024, she finished fourth overall at La Vuelta Femenina, third overall at Itzulia Women, fifth at Tour de Suisse and Giro d'Italia Women, and just off the podium at the Olympics time trial in Paris, and then went on to take 9th overall at the Tour.
9. Sarah Gigante
Sarah Gigante debuted at the Tour de France Femmes in 2024 where she finished seventh overall, despite facing several challenges along the way.
She knew that the sprinter-friendly and technical Grand Départ in Rotterdam would be difficult to navigate, and she had lost nearly three minutes by the time the race reached France.
She slowly gained places as the race hit the mountains, and while she was 11th on the ascent to Le Grand Bornand, she made up for that on her climb to the top of Alpe d'Huez on the final stage finishing 8th and moving up from 17th to 7th overall.
With a less technical Grand Départ and a wider selection of mountains across the latter half of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, we could see Gigante improve on her overall placings in the hunt for the yellow jersey.
AG Insurance-Soudal has both Gigante and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio as cards to play for the general classification in 2025.
Moolman Pasio finished sixth overall in the 2023 edition, but could not compete in 2024 because she was still recovering from a fractured T10 vertebra sustained in a high-speed crash on stage 1 of the Volta a Catalunya Femenina. She announced that she has re-signed with AG Insurance-Soudal and would focus on the Tour for 2025 and 2026.
10. Marion Bunel
Marion Bunel departed St Michel-Mavic-Auber93 and has jumped up to the WorldTour with Visma-Lease a Bike in 2025 where she could play a leadership role at the Tour de France Femmes.
The team has also signed Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who returns to road racing after a sparking mountain bike career, so the two French riders could be co-leaders at their home race.
Bunel turned heads when she finished fifth on the Jabel Hafeet ascent to take fifth overall at the UAE Tour in 2024. She went on to ninth at Tour de Romandie and won the overall title at the Tour de l'Avenir Femmes and second overall at the Tour de l'Ardeche.
With a strong team to support her in the mountains and with experienced riders like Marianne Vos and Ferrand-Prévot on her side, Bunel could become the revelation of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes.
11. Mavi García
Mavi Garcia has been one of the riders we've anticipated to be among the GC standings across La Vuelta Femenina, Giro d'Italia Women and at the Tour de France Femmes in recent years.
The former Spanish Champion excels across hilly terrain and in tough, tactical racing often ensuring that she is in a position to fight for a breakaway or finish among the selection on major ascents.
Although she didn't have her best season in 2024, she improved ahead of the summer stage races, having finished fourth overall at Itzulia Women and just recently winning the Vuelta Ciclista Andalucia. She also finished ninth overall at the Giro d'Italia Women, sixth in the road race at the Olympic Games and fifth overall at the Tour de Romandie.
Her best place at the Tour de France Femmes was 10th in 2022, but she is likely to lead the Liv-AlUla-Jayco team once again in the event in 2025.
12. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot
Ferrand-Prévot retired from cross-country mountain biking after winning the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Paris and she returned to road racing at the World Championships in Zürich in 2024.
She announced that she will be racing with Visma-Lease a Bike on a three-year contract from 2025-2027, and has her sights set on competing at the Tour de France Femmes.
Although she hasn't raced a full road season since 2018, outside of competing at the French Road Championships in 2019 and 2021, Ferrand-Prévot will be a key rider to watch for almost every race she lines up at in 2025.
The French rider made history in the 2014-2015 season at the age of 23 when she became the first cyclist to hold world titles in the three disciplines simultaneously. She won the elite women's road race world title in 2014 Ponferrada, the XCO cross-country world title in 2015 in Vallnord, and the cyclo-cross world title in 2015 in Tabor. Since then, she has amassed a total of 15 elite world titles across road, mountain bike, cyclocross and gravel.
In stage racing, Ferrand-Prévot has won the overall title at Emakumeen Bira and finished second overall at the Giro d'Italia Women, two of the biggest stage races in the world for women in 2014 while racing for Rabobank-Liv alongside Vos and Van der Breggen. She competed for Rabobank-Liv for six seasons, 2012-2016 before moving over to Canyon-SRAM for four seasons, 2017-2020.
Given her experience and history in road racing, she cannot be discounted as a contender for an overall place at the Tour de France Femmes.
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Kirsten Frattini is the Deputy Editor of Cyclingnews, overseeing the global racing content plan.
Kirsten has a background in Kinesiology and Health Science. She has been involved in cycling from the community and grassroots level to professional cycling's biggest races, reporting on the WorldTour, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic Games.
She began her sports journalism career with Cyclingnews as a North American Correspondent in 2006. In 2018, Kirsten became Women's Editor – overseeing the content strategy, race coverage and growth of women's professional cycling – before becoming Deputy Editor in 2023.
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