Tour de France Femmes

The Tour de France Femmes, run as the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift after its title sponsor, is a nine-day women's cycling stage race held each summer, mostly on French roads. Launched in 2022, it has quickly become the marquee stage race on the women's WorldTour calendar.

The Tour de France Femmes is the women’s Tour de France, a race of eight or nine stages that the Tour’s organizer has run every summer since 2022. Its mountain finishes have included the Tourmalet, Alpe d’Huez and Mont Ventoux. Demi Vollering is the only rider to have won it twice.

How many stages are in the Tour de France Femmes?

The Tour de France Femmes has had nine stages since 2025; its first three editions, from 2022 to 2024, had eight. The stages are raced on consecutive days, with no rest day.

How long is the Tour de France Femmes?

The 2026 route covered 1,175 kilometers, about 730 miles, in nine days. The eight-stage routes of 2022 to 2024 measured between about 945 and 1,030 kilometers. In 2026 the race had 22 teams of seven riders, 154 in all.

Women’s Tour de France history before 2022

A women’s field first raced a Tour de France in 1955. On September 28 of that year 41 riders started at Rambouillet in a race put on by the journalist Jean Leulliot. Millie Robinson won after five stages, and the race was never held again.

In 1984 Félix Lévitan, the director of the Société du Tour de France, launched the Tour de France Féminin. The women raced each day on part of the men’s route, ahead of the men, and finished on the same line. The American Marianne Martin won the first edition, over 18 stages, after winning in the Alps at Grenoble and La Plagne. Maria Canins won in 1985 and 1986 and Jeannie Longo from 1987 to 1989, and the race then lost its place beside the men’s Tour. From 2014 to 2021 the Tour’s organizer, ASO, ran La Course by Le Tour de France, which Marianne Vos won first and Vollering last.

Van Vleuten wins the first edition in the Vosges

The 2022 race started in Paris, between the Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Élysées, and had eight stages. Vos wore the yellow jersey for five days. Annemiek van Vleuten had been ill early in the week and had lost time. On the seventh stage, 127 kilometers from Sélestat to Le Markstein, she attacked at the foot of the Petit Ballon with 70 kilometers left. Vollering went with her and was then dropped, and Van Vleuten won by 3 minutes 26 seconds.

The last stage finished on the Super Planche des Belles Filles. Van Vleuten changed bikes four times during the day and once had to chase back to the peloton alone. She attacked at the foot of the final climb, 5.4 kilometers from the line, and won alone again at the age of 39. Vollering was second overall and Kasia Niewiadoma third.

Vollering takes yellow on the Tourmalet in 2023

In 2023 the mountain stage crossed the Col d’Aspin and finished on the Tourmalet. Van Vleuten attacked 5 kilometers from the top of the Aspin, and only Vollering and Niewiadoma could follow. Niewiadoma went clear on the descent and started the Tourmalet 45 seconds ahead. Vollering attacked 5.5 kilometers from the summit, caught her 500 meters later and rode on alone through the mist. She won by 1 minute 58 seconds and took the yellow jersey from her SD Worx teammate Lotte Kopecky.

Marlen Reusser won the closing time trial in Pau, 10 seconds ahead of Vollering, with Kopecky third. All three rode for SD Worx. Kopecky and Niewiadoma finished the Tour on the same time, and the hundredths of a second from the time trial gave Kopecky second place.

Four seconds on Alpe d’Huez in 2024

Niewiadoma started the last stage of 2024, from Le Grand-Bornand to Alpe d’Huez, in yellow and 1 minute 15 seconds ahead of Vollering. Vollering attacked 2.5 kilometers from the top of the Col du Glandon, with 54 kilometers to go. Only Pauliena Rooijakkers could stay with her, and their lead grew to 1 minute 30 seconds.

At the foot of Alpe d’Huez, a climb of 13.8 kilometers at 8.1 percent, the two were 45 seconds ahead. Niewiadoma rode the climb with help from Évita Muzic in the last kilometers. Vollering won the stage, and Niewiadoma kept the yellow jersey by four seconds. Rooijakkers was third overall, 10 seconds behind the winner.

Ferrand-Prévot wins the last two stages in 2025

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot took control of the 2025 race by winning the eighth stage on the Col de la Madeleine. On the ninth and last stage she attacked 6.7 kilometers from the finish in Châtel and won by 20 seconds from Vollering. Her winning margin was 3 minutes 42 seconds. Sarah Gigante started that day second overall, lost contact on the descent of the Col de Joux-Plane and finished sixth.

Ferrand-Prévot was the first French winner of the race. Longo’s last win in the Tour de France Féminin had come 36 years earlier. Niewiadoma, by then racing as Niewiadoma-Phinney, was third, and she finished in the first three in each of the first five editions.

Mont Ventoux and Nice: Vollering’s second win in 2026

The fifth edition started in Lausanne and covered 1,175 kilometers in nine stages, the longest route so far. Reusser took the lead in the time trial at Dijon. Mont Ventoux was climbed for the first time in the race on stage 7. Niewiadoma-Phinney attacked more than 9 kilometers from the top, won by 1 minute 16 seconds from Vollering and took the yellow jersey by 15 seconds.

Vollering took it back the next day with an attack on the Chemin de l’Arieta, 6 kilometers from the finish, and led by eight seconds. The final stage was four laps over the Col d’Èze above Nice. The two leaders traded attacks on the last ascent until Vollering went clear 800 meters from the top. She won alone on the Promenade des Anglais and took her second Tour by 1 minute 18 seconds.

The Tour de France Femmes matters because it draws the strongest field in women's stage racing and compresses Grand Tour pressure into nine intense days. The route typically includes serious mountain stages, sprint opportunities, and in most years a time trial, creating multiple ways to win or lose the yellow jersey. The race has produced close overall battles, late lead changes, and breakout performances since its first edition. It sits at the center of the women's calendar in both prestige and tactical stakes.