No Lifeplus-wahoo at Tour de France Femmes after snub

The manager of Continental women’s team Lifeplus-wahoo has said it’s a “shame” there will be no British squads at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift this year, after his team did not receive an invite.

Lifeplus-wahoo were present at both the inaugural race in 2022 and last year’s edition, but were missed o organiser ASO’S invite list for this August.

“We found out on social media,” team boss Tom Varney told Cycling Weekly.

“I was actually making dinner for the kids when one of our DS’S emailed me a screenshot, and said, ‘[It] looks like there’s no Tour for us then.’

“One of our title sponsors also messaged me within a few minutes of that, and I had to manage that situation. It’s a shame, and we don’t necessarily know why at the moment. I think it’s fair to say, performance wise, we’ve not been where we want to be this year, so I imagine that may be the main issue, but I feel like the last two years, we also made a good impression there.”

In 2022, the team took the white jersey for best young rider on the opening day, and finished second in the classification last year with then 20-year-old Kiwi rider Ella Wyllie.

This year’s Tour de France Femmes will count all 15 of the women’s Worldtour teams, as well as last year’s two top-ranked Continental teams: Cofidis and Tashkent City. For the remaining five slots, ASO decided to invite French teams Arkéa-b&b Hotels and St Michel-mavic-auber93, as well as Lotto-dstny, Laboral Kutxa-fundación Euskadi and the newly reformed EF Education-cannondale.