The fifth Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift sets off from Lausanne on August 1st carrying nearly 19,000 metres of climbing, a first appearance for the Giant of Provence, and a startlist three former champions deep.
Nine Days, No Easy Ones
At five o’clock on Saturday afternoon, 147 riders from 21 teams will roll away from Lausanne’s Côte Saint-François and begin nine days of racing that organisers believe may be the hardest the women’s Tour has ever staged. The numbers alone make the case: 1,175 kilometres and 18,775 metres of climbing, the longest route since the race’s rebirth in 2022, spread across Switzerland and France before finishing on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
Race director Marion Rousse walked through the parcours stage by stage in the days before the Grand Départ. “We begin with an uphill finish at the Côte Saint-François, where Wout van Aert won a stage in the 2022 Tour de France,” she said. “Next up, Stage 2 from Aigle to Geneva is meant for sprinters.” The race leaves Switzerland on the third day, climbing into the Jura on the way to Poligny — “the first real mountain of this Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, so I’d say this one is for the ‘baroudeuses’ [attackers],” Rousse said — before the clock takes over in Burgundy. The 21-kilometre time trial from Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon on stage four, Rousse predicted, “will create some gaps and change how the race is ridden by certain cyclists who will need to go on the attack in order to regain the time they may lose here.”
The Beaujolais hills of stage five suit the same riders, Rousse added, as does the stage seven summit finish on Mont Ventoux — the race’s first visit to the mountain in its five editions. “It’s difficult to find a better place for a cycling race, be it for the myth around this mountain or for the challenge it represents,” she said. Even the Giant of Provence may not settle matters. Two stages finish in Nice, the second of them four laps of the Col d’Èze that include the Chemin du Vinaigrier on the final circuit. “There is enough terrain to reshape the standings that day,” Rousse said.
| Stage | Date | Start | Finish | Distance (km) |
| 1 | 08/01/26 | Lausanne | Lausanne | 137 |
| 2 | 08/02/26 | Aigle | Genève | 149 |
| 3 | 08/03/26 | Genève | Poligny | 157 |
| 4 | 08/04/26 | Gevrey-Chambertin | Dijon (ITT) | 21 |
| 5 | 08/05/26 | Mâcon | Belleville-en-Beaujolais | 140 |
| 6 | 08/06/26 | Montbrison | Tournon-sur-Rhône | 153 |
| 7 | 08/07/26 | La Voulte-sur-Rhône | Mont Ventoux | 144 |
| 8 | 08/08/26 | Sisteron | Nice | 175 |
| 9 | 08/09/26 | Nice | Nice | 99 |
Measured Against 1984
Calling any route the toughest women’s Tour ever invites an argument, because the inaugural Tour de France Féminin set an extraordinarily high bar in 1984. That race covered 1,059 kilometres over 18 stages, and on the mountain days the women rode shortened versions of the men’s stages — typically the final 60 to 80 kilometres — but still climbed the same Alpine and Pyrenean passes at the same gradients. As 1984 rider Patty Peoples put it, when organisers trimmed the stage lengths, “it wasn’t the mountains that were cut.”
The case for placing 2026 alongside 1984 rests on compression rather than raw numbers: comparable distance and climbing packed into nine consecutive days rather than 18 stages spread across 23, rest days included. Whether nine days of accumulating fatigue without a break outweighs legendary passes tackled with recovery in between is a question with no clean answer. Either way, this year’s route belongs in the same conversation.
The First Yellow Jersey
Before any of that, the race must be started, and the uphill finish at Lausanne’s Côte Saint-François — 2.6 kilometres at 4.6 percent — will hand out the tour’s first Maillot Jaune. Marianne Vos rates French national champion Célia Gery among the favourites for it: “Célia is very punchy and very fast at the finish, but also very good with positioning,” Vos said. “She knows how to race and will definitely be one to watch for the opening stage. I’m very curious to see how she’ll do in this Tour de France.” Gery is racing her first Tour, as is Swiss climbing prospect Noemi Rüegg, an outright favourite on the same finish after winning the opening stage of this year’s Vuelta Femenina on a similar profile. “Ever since they announced that the Tour was starting in my home country, this race has been a super big goal for me,” Rüegg said. “It will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. The first two stages suit me really well so that makes it even more exciting.” Lorena Wiebes, who wore yellow after Lausanne once before, in 2023, wants it again: “It’s important to start on a good note,” the SD Worx-Protime sprinter said. “Looking back at this experience, I will enjoy it even more if I’m able to wear it one more time. It’s a big goal for our team… And then we can try to keep it as long as possible, but probably not with me.”
Three-Time Rivals
Three former winners start in Lausanne, and all three want to become the first rider to win the Tour de France Femmes twice since its 2022 return. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot gave herself three years to win it; she did it on her first attempt last summer, and her last victory anywhere came in Châtel on 3 August 2025, in yellow. “Since the beginning of the season, my goal has been to be at my 100 percent in the Tour,” said the Visma | Lease a Bike leader, who finished third at Paris-Roubaix Femmes in April. “I’m not the kind of rider who can and wants to perform all season long. I pick my battles and I commit to my plans, so I can be in top shape when the one, big goal comes. It’s true I haven’t won any races this season as of yet, but I’m really happy with how everything has gone.” She has scouted the route in detail, including recon rides up Ventoux itself: “I feel ready, physically and mentally. Everything in the preparation has gone according to plan,” she said. “It’s a totally different Tour de France. And as I often say, I like to know where I put my wheels. I went several times to Mont Ventoux, just to do recon rides. And I’m very happy to finish in Nice.” She lives on the Riviera for much of the year. “I ride up this year’s main climb almost every day. I would love to go back to this road after the Tour and think that I did my best here.”
Demi Vollering, champion in 2023 and runner-up in every other edition, arrives with the strongest season of her career already banked — the Tour of Flanders, La Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Giro d’Italia Women, where she also took the QOM jersey. “We could only dream of a campaign like this, and it helps us come into this race in a rather relaxed mood,” the FDJ United-Suez rider said. “We have nothing to prove.” She expects the race to swing on its own momentum: “It’s going to be a mad, very exciting Tour. The Yellow Jersey may change hands many times, and I hope to wear it after the final stage. We need to be very focused every day, as we have seen in the last few years how things can change so fast in the Tour de France.”
Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, the 2024 winner, has finished third in each of the two editions since. “We are here to win the Yellow Jersey,” the Canyon//SRAM rider said, before conceding ground she expects to lose elsewhere: “I accept that I will lose time to riders like Marlen [Reusser], Anna [van der Breggen] or Demi [Vollering] in the time trial, so it’s all about finding opportunities elsewhere. And I feel like there’s plenty of them, so it’s all about seizing chances and not being too shy.” Of Mont Ventoux specifically, she does not expect a cagey finale: “I don’t believe everyone will be waiting for the final kilometres to make their decisive move. We can expect a hard start, and then survival.”
The Outsiders With a Point to Prove
Two-time Giro winner Elisa Longo Borghini is still chasing her first Tour title, and Anna van der Breggen — back from retirement with this race as her stated target — has already worn the Giro’s pink jersey and the Vuelta’s red jersey this year en route to a runner-up finish overall in both. She reads the parcours as a war of attrition rather than a single decisive day. “If you look at the stages, you can say there isn’t one single easy day,” the SD Worx-Protime rider said. “We have to keep as much energy as possible until the final stage, which is one of the hardest — and that’s quite tough in a stage race. The most important thing is handling every day alright and having a good recovery between stages.”
Marlen Reusser comes in on the back of victory at the Tour de Suisse and runner-up finishes at the Vuelta and Giro, and enters the Dijon time trial as reigning world champion against the clock, on what amounts to home roads. “It’s a super special occasion, especially as this is the very first Tour de France that I properly target as a rider, making it the main focus of my season,” the Movistar rider said. She reconned the Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon course after a crash at the Tour of Flanders and rates it highly: “I’m happy there is a time trial in this Tour, because I believe every grand tour should have at least one. As for this particular ITT, I reconned the course after my crash in the Tour of Flanders and I liked it because it has a bit of everything, with some technical sections and a demanding climb.”
Puncheurs, Underdogs and Secret Weapons
Several directeurs sportifs read the parcours the same way. “The course is designed for puncheurs, rather than for pure climbers,” said Jolien d’Hoore, DS at AG Insurance-Soudal, whose roster includes 2025 stage winner and Yellow Jersey wearer Kim Le Court Pienaar. “The Tour is looking really good, with Classics vibes everyday,” the Mauritian rider said. “First we’ll chase stages, and we also want to aim for the highest result overall. The top 5 is our target, and anything above is a bonus. But we’ll take things as they come. We’re not the team that everyone looks at, we’re a bit more underdogs.”
UAE Team ADQ, entering both Longo Borghini and Vuelta surprise winner Paula Blasi, is playing its cards close. “No one knowing our strategy is our secret weapon, so we rather keep it secret,” said team captain Brodie Chapman — a squad that also carries two of last year’s breakout riders, fourth-placed Dominika Włodarczyk and two-stage winner Maëva Squiban. Fenix-Premier Tech’s Puck Pieterse, white jersey winner in 2024, is content to wait and see. “I will take the race day by day, and play my chances when the time is right,” she said, adding that the opening stage remains an open question for much of the bunch: “We don’t know yet if it will be for a sprinter or for a puncheur, so many of us have our eyes set on that Yellow Jersey…”
The New Generation Arrives
The white jersey, contested this year by every rider born from 1 January 2003 onward, will test a genuinely deep field of prospects — among them defending competition winner Nienke Vinke, Giro runner-up Antonia Niedermaier, Vuelta best-young-rider Marion Bunel, and Lore de Schepper. Lidl-Trek’s Isabella Holmgren, winner of last year’s Tour de l’Avenir and best young rider at this year’s Giro, frames her ambitions plainly: “Winning the Tour is a dream for me. Gaining some experience this year is a good step towards that.” Paula Blasi, the Vuelta’s overall and QOM winner making her Tour debut, arrives with the form to match the talk: “My numbers say that I am in my best shape ever, but then the race is a completely different story,” she said. “I come into the Tour with a lot of confidence, and high expectations.”
Three current world champions line up in the youth ranks alone. Movistar’s Paula Ostiz, 19, holds both the junior road race world and European titles. U23 time trial world champion Zoe Backstedt is targeting Dijon specifically: “Time trialling is the one thing that suits me the most, so I think it’s going to be my favourite stage of the whole race, and it’s where I want to shine.” And U23 road race world champion Célia Gery will race a Grand Départ close to home for at least one rival — reigning road world champion Magdeleine Vallières began her European career at the UCI World Cycling Centre in Aigle, start town of stage two. “It will be super cool to race around Aigle,” Vallières said. “It was my home for two years and it will be really nice to race somewhere so familiar.”
The Sprinters’ Race Within the Race
Lorena Wiebes returns as defending points classification winner, with teammate Lotte Kopecky — green jersey winner in 2023 — riding in support of both Wiebes and van der Breggen at SD Worx-Protime. Elisa Balsamo took four stages at this year’s Giro but has yet to win at the Tour in four attempts, while Marianne Vos, whose victory in Plumelec last year earned her a spell in yellow, and Charlotte Kool, a two-stage winner in 2024 who was hampered by a crash last year, complete a bunch-sprint picture that should animate the flatter early stages before the road tilts upward from Dijon onward.
Nine days, one Giant of Provence, and three former champions all insisting they have not finished with this race — the fifth Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift has the cast, and now the course, to match its billing.
