Tour de France Femmes 2026

The long wait for the 2026 Tour de France Femmes will finally be over this week as the race kicks off in Lausanne, Switzerland on Saturday, August 1.

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) took back-to-back commanding sprint victories on stage 1 in Lausanne and on stage 2 in Geneva of the Tour de France Femmes.

The Dutch rider lost the yellow jersey on stage 3, as Norwegian champion Sigrid Haugset (Uno-X Mobility) surprised with field with a monster solo ride across more than 85km for a solo victory.

The yellow jersey changed hands again on stage 4, with Movistar's Marlen Reusser proving why she is the time trial world champion. With the ITT victory into Dijon, the Swiss rider moved into the GC lead, 14 seconds in front of Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ).

Stage 5 saw race leader Reusser retain the lead in a three-up sprint against top rivals Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM), with the FDJ rider taking the win.

A second hilly day on stage 6 concluded with an eight-rider escape, Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) taking the sprint win after she rejoined the group from a late mechanical and bike change.

Stage 7 was the much-anticipated queen stage to the top of Mont Ventoux. Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney attacked with 9.2km to go to win the stage, going 1:16 minutes ahead of Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez). The Polish rider for Canyon-SRAM moved into the yellow jersey as well, with GC leader Marlen Reusser (Movistar) dropped in the last kilometre from the chase and finishing fourth.

Now in its fifth edition, the race has firmly established itself as the most important race on the calendar, and this year's instalment could bring us the biggest and most tense GC battle yet.

We've been analysing the contenders all year round, but before the race kicked off, Matilda Price has wrote our final run-down of the Tour de France Femmes contenders, with Demi Vollering and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot poised for fantastic duel with Ventoux finale.

Dani Ostanek took a finer look at the route to pull out the key and decisive stages, whilst Maria David went back through the history books to tell the stories of some of the climbs in this edition.

Simone Giuliani went inside the mindset, preparation and ambitions of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, whilst our exclusive Q&A with FDJ team boss Stephen Delcourt lifted the lid on their approach to the Tour.

We also have Brodie Chapman on board as a columnist, penning her first pre-race piece about the challenge to return from injury, and she'll be sending dispatches during and after the race, too.

On this page and on our site, you'll find comprehensive coverage of the Tour, from our countdown of features looking at the favourites, route, history and more, plus daily on the ground coverage from Matilda Price and Dani Ostanek, delivering news, analysis and interviews across the race's nine stages.

Important Tour de France Femmes news

• 'Really stupid from both of us' – Marlen Reusser regrets mark-out tactics with Demi Vollering as yellow jersey sails away at Tour de France Femmes
• 'It's just a mind trip' – Riders from the Tour de France Femmes peloton recount their racing experiences of Mont Ventoux
• How to watch Tour de France Femmes 2026 – Live streams and official broadcasters

2026 Tour de France Femmes route

ASO and race directors Marion Rousse and Christian Prudhomme revealed the details of the route of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes at the Palais des Congrès in Paris on Thursday, October 23.

The fifth edition of the Tour de France Femmes will be held from August 1-9 with nine days of racing, starting with three stages in Switzerland. It's the second foreign Grand Départ to the biggest stage race on the Women's WorldTour calendar, after Rotterdam in 2024.

As was the case in 2025, the 2026 edition will be the longest yet at 1175km total distance, with a new high total elevation gain of 18,795m.

The Swiss Grand Départ will kick off from Lausanne, with three stages in Switzerland, before it heads into France for a Dijon time trial, and the key climbing days up to Mont Ventoux – which will make an iconic debut in the Tour de France Femmes – and into Nice for the grand finale.

See the full details of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes route.

Cyclingnews will have live coverage of all eight stages of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, along with race reports, galleries, results, and exclusive features and news.

2026 Tour de France Femmes start list

See the Tour de France Femmes start list here.

2026 Tour de France Femmes schedule

Tour de France Femmes History

• You’ve come a long way, baby - Vital statistics show sea change in women’s cycling
• Marianne Martin: Remembering the magic of the 1984 women's Tour de France
• La Grande Boucle, La Course and the return of the women's Tour de France

Cyclingnews has assembled a full list of champions dating back to the first version in 1955 and the original women's Tour de France stage race held from 1984-1989 to the modern Tour de France Femmes.

The women's peloton raced their first official launch of the women's Tour de France until 1984, won by American Marianne Martin. It was an 18-day race held simultaneously as the men's event and along much of the same but shortened routes with shared finish lines. The Société du Tour de France, which later became part of ASO in 1992, managed both men's and women's events.

The women's Tour de France ended in 1989, and while ASO went on to organise women's one-day races like La Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, La Course, and the inaugural Paris-Roubaix Femmes (in 2021), the women's peloton had not been included as part of the official Tour de France for the past 30 years.

Other women's stage races in France, not run by ASO, took place, including the Tour Cycliste Féminin, which had started in 1992, and the re-named Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale, until it came to an end in 2009.

La Course by La Tour de France was then created in 2014 following a petition to ASO calling for a women's Tour de France. Le Tour Entier's petition was led by Kathryn Bertine, Marianne Vos, Emma Pooley and Chrissie Wellington and secured 97,307 signatures. The event was held across various platforms, from a one-day to a multi-day event between 2014 and 2021.

Champions included Marianne Vos, Anna van der Breggen and Chloe Hosking in the first three editions from 2014 to 2016. Annemiek van Vleuten won in 2017 and 2018, followed by Vos in 2019, Lizzie Deignan in 2020 and Demi Vollering in 2021.

Despite its controversy, La Course had become one of the most showcased events in the Women's WorldTour, and although the wait was longer than anyone anticipated, it finally became the stepping stone to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

Tour de France men's race director Christian Prudhomme made a long-awaited confirmation that Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) would launch a women's Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in 2022 with Marion Rousse as the event's race director.

Zwift announced that it would become the title sponsor of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift on a five-year deal through 2026.

The first edition of the rebirth of the 2022 Tour de France Femmes was an eight-day race that began on the Champs-Élysées in Paris in conjunction with the final stage 21 of the men's Tour de France and ended on La Super Planche des Belles Filles, where Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) was crowned the overall champion.

The 2023 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift route hit new heights with 956 kilometres and a grand finale in the Pyrenees with a mountaintop finish on the iconic Tourmalet on stage 7 and a final stage 8 time trial in Pau, with Demi Vollering winning the overall title.

The 2024 Tour de France Femmes came down to a final chase up l'Alpe d'Huez, with Vollering narrowly missing gaining enough time to unseat Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM). The four-second margin of victory made the edition the closest in Tour de France history - men or women.

In 2025, the Tour de France Femmes was dominated by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), who retired from mountain biking after winning the Olympic gold medal in Paris, to focus on road racing.

She won by 3:42 over Vollering and Niewiadoma.