Tour de France Femmes 2024

2024 Tour de France Femmes Information

The route for the 2024 Tour de France Femmes was officially presented in Paris on October 25 by race director Marion Rousse. 

The third edition of the modern incarnation of the women's Tour de France will be held after the Paris Olympic Games with eight stages across seven days between Monday, August 12 and Sunday, August 18.

Organisers offer a total of 946.3km of racing that includes three flat stages for the sprinters, one individual time trial, two hilly stages, two mountain stages and a crowning conclusion atop the iconic Alpe d'Huez.

Cyclingnews will have live coverage of all eight stages of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, along with race reports, galleries, results, and exclusive features and news.

2024 Tour de France Femmes Route

The route for the 2024 Tour de France Femmes includes a Grand Départ in the Netherlands from August 12 to August 14, and takes place in host cities Rotterdam, The Hague, Dordrecht, and Valkenburg.

The route then crosses into the Ardennes Classics iconic cities of Liège and Bastogne before entering France and travelling into the Alps for two final mountain stages in Le Grand Bornand and Alpe d'Huez.

• Stage 1: Rotterdam to The Hague, 124km
• Stage 2: Dordrecht to Rotterdam, 67km
• Stage 3: Rotterdam to Rotterdam, 6.3km
• Stage 4: Valkenburg to Liège, 122km
• Stage 5: Bastogne to Amnéville, 150km
• Stage 6: Remiremont to Morteau, 160km
• Stage 7: Champagnole to Le Grand-Bornand, 167km
• Stage 8: Le Grand-Bornand to Alpe d'Huez, 150km

2024 Tour de France Femmes Schedule

2024 Tour de France Femmes Contenders

Defending champion Demi Vollering (SD Worx) is likely to return to the 2024 Tour de France Femmes to try and win a second consecutive overall title after securing the yellow jersey in the 2023 edition.

Annemiek van Vleuten, the winner of the 2022 Tour de France Femmes and fourth in 2023, has retired from professional cycling after a sparkling 16-year career and so will not be competing in the third edition of the event.

Two-time podium finisher Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), gravel world champion, will line up as one of the main contenders for the overall title.

Road race world champion Lotte Kopecky (also SD Worx) won the opening stage last year and wore the yellow jersey for six days, climbed with the best to the summit of the Col du Tourmalet, and then stormed to third place in the time trial in Pau. She closed out the eight-day race by winning the green points jersey and taking second overall behind her teammate Vollering. She will be one to watch in the 2024 edition of the Tour de France Femmes.

Juliette Labous (Team dsm-firmenich) was the top French rider in last year's Tour de France Femmes, and other riders to watch will be Ashleigh Moolman Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal-QuickStep) and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-SUEZ).

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 will showcase back-to-back summit finishes at Le Grand Bornand and Alpe d'Huez where the overall champion will be crowned.