Chrono des Nations Women

The Chrono des Nations Women is a women's individual time trial, a one-day bike race against the clock, held each October at Les Herbiers in the Vendée, in western France. It is run on the same day as the men's race, and its winners are paid from the same prize list. Jeannie Longo won the first edition in 1987 and holds the record of six wins.

The Chrono des Nations Women is an individual time trial raced each October at Les Herbiers, in the Vendée in western France, on the same day as the men’s race. Riders start one at a time from a ramp in front of the town hall. Jeannie Longo won the first edition in 1987 and five more after it.

Jeannie Longo’s six wins in Les Herbiers

The event began in 1982 as a time trial for amateur men, and the women’s race was added in 1987. Longo won it that year and again in 1992, 1995 and 2000. No other rider has won more than four times. Zulfiya Zabirova took her four in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2002, as the list of winners on the organizer’s site shows.

Longo’s fifth and sixth wins came more than twenty years after her first. The 2008 race was her last before her 50th birthday on October 31, and she finished second in it to Susanne Ljungskog. In 2009 she won over 20.87 kilometers in 28 minutes 52 seconds, 33 seconds ahead of Trine Schmidt. In 2010 she beat Amber Neben by 30 seconds. Neben won in 2011, nine seconds ahead of Kristin Armstrong, and Longo was eighth.

How long is the women’s Chrono des Nations?

The women raced 27.23 kilometers in 2023 and 2024 and 26.74 kilometers in 2025, and the winner took about 36 minutes each time. The course used to be shorter: it measured 20.87 kilometers in 2008 and 2009.

The start ramp stands in front of the town hall, and the finish is on the Place de la Gare, a few hundred meters away. The circuit in the road book goes out through Saint-Paul-en-Pareds, where the only time check stands after 10.5 kilometers, passes through Rochetrejoux and returns to Les Herbiers. The road book names no climb. ProCyclingStats counts 213 meters of climbing on the 27.23-kilometer version. Riders start one minute apart.

One-second wins for Anna Kiesenhofer and Ellen van Dijk

In 2023 Anna Kiesenhofer, the Olympic road race champion, finished in 36 minutes 23 seconds, and her Austrian compatriot Christina Schweinberger was one second slower.

Two years later the margin was almost the same. Rain began to fall at 2:15 in the afternoon, and the best time passed from Emma Siegers to Anneke Dijkstra, then to Schweinberger and then to Alessia Vigilia, who finished in 35 minutes 58 seconds. Ellen van Dijk started last. She was about a second ahead of Vigilia and Schweinberger at the time check, and she reached the finish 1.54 seconds ahead of Vigilia. She said afterwards that the rain had frightened her a little and that she had slowed in the corners. Schweinberger took third place, 16 hundredths of a second ahead of Dijkstra.

Grace Brown’s last race in the rainbow jersey

Grace Brown chose the 2024 race as the last of her career. She had won the Olympic time trial in Paris and the world title in Zürich that season. The organizer wrote that Les Herbiers was the first and last time she wore the rainbow jersey in a race. She covered the 27.23 kilometers in 35 minutes 26 seconds, 51 seconds faster than her teammate Vittoria Guazzini and 54 seconds faster than Kiesenhofer. All three riders on the podium were Olympic champions, and the organizer wrote that this had not happened at the race before.

A year later Van Dijk ended her career in the same place. Her win by a second was the 71st victory of her career, at the age of 38. She had been world time trial champion three times. In 2022 she had come to Les Herbiers as world champion and won by 1 minute 6 seconds from Valeriya Kononenko.

Audrey Cordon-Ragot, the last French winner

Audrey Cordon-Ragot won in 2017, and through 2025 no French rider has won since. Ten years earlier she had won the first junior women’s race held at the event. The winners from 2018 to 2025 came from Uzbekistan, the United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria and Australia. Marlen Reusser of Switzerland won in 2021, 52 seconds ahead of Kiesenhofer.

The organizer pays the women’s winners from the same prize list as the men’s. In 2025 the winner of each elite race received 5,785 euros.

In 2025 Ellen van Dijk started last, rode into the rain in the final race of her career and beat Alessia Vigilia by 1.54 seconds. In 2024 Grace Brown also ended her career here, winning in the world champion's jersey by 51 seconds. In 2023 Anna Kiesenhofer beat her Austrian compatriot Christina Schweinberger by one second.