Ladies first: female cyclists want own Tour

LOURDES, France — They ride before the start of each Tour de France stage. On the same 3,351-kilometre route. Every morning. Except there won’t be a podium or prize money waiting for them on the Champ Elysées when they finish today, a day before the yellow jersey arrives in Paris.

What these 13 women hope for, instead, is recognition, respect, and the return of the women’s Tour.

“We want a women’s stage race with the same media coverage and the same attention as men have,” Tetiana Kalachova said. “Not necessarily the same roads and not the same quantity of dates, but with the same appreciation.”

Kalachova and her teammates rise early every day to complete the three-week challenge.

They have conquered the jarring cobblestones of Roubaix, daunting ascents in the Alps, the foothills of the Massif Central, and have been pedaling this week through the Pyrenees.

“We are trying to prove that women, even amateurs, totally clean — no doping, no special assistance — are able for this kind of effort,” Kalachova says.

None of the team, called “Donnons des elles au velo” in a play of words meaning give women or wings to cycling, are being paid for their efforts. Unlike the men, they have to contend with normal traffic as they navigate the route. Dirty air from heavy trucks washed over the women as they departed Carcassonne for a 218-kilometre stage.

“We respect the traffic signs. We stop at red lights. We respect the rules,” Kalachova says.

Ideally, the team would like the return of the Tour de France Feminin, which ran alongside the men’s event from 1984-89, or at least a women’s stage race that is given the same importance as the men’s.

“Cycling is one of the unequal sports,” Kalachova adds.

Dutch star Marianne Vos, a two-time Olympic champion and three-time winner of the women’s Giro d’Italia, has no doubt women are physically capable of completing a 21-day Tour de France.

But Vos, who praised the recent development of women’s cycling, also wonders about the feasibility of a women’s Tour, saying it would impact on the existing calendar and a shorter stage race might be preferable.

“Of course it would be great to have a [women’s] Tour de France for 21 days, but I don’t think it’s the best thing for women’s cycling at the moment,” Vos said.

Tour organizers have had a women’s race called La Course by Le Tour since 2014. This year’s was an exciting one-day race won in Annecy by defending champion Annemiek van Vleuten, but it’s a long way from what “Donnons des elles au velo” wants.