:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/liberation/LFLPWMEEKJHTBCWZ3RPIZ2LWWE.jpg?w=1240&resize=1240,&ssl=1)
After three successful summers, the extension. For the 2025 edition of the Tour de France women, the fourth since the return of the big women’s loop in 2022, the race is playing overtime: nine days of competition are on the program compared to the usual eight. This Tuesday, October 29, in Paris, Marion Rousse and Christian Prudhomme, director and race director, presented a route measuring 1,165 km in total which will take the runners across France from West to East.
Unlike last summer when a good part of the Tour was completed in the Netherlands and Belgium, the 2025 edition will remain in France. The start of the first stage will be given in the port of Vannes, in Morbihan, on July 26, with an arrival in Plumelec in a final circuit made up of several small hills. The Tour will stay for a second stage in Brittany (between Brest and Quimper) before heading to Angers (Maine-et-Loire) then to Poitiers (Vienne) for two stages promised to the sprinters.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot expected
As in 2024, the road will rise especially in the second part of the race. There will first be two medium mountain stages starting from Clermont-Ferrand (which hosted the big start of the 2023 Women’s Tour) and Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain). Then two more high mountains to finish in the Alps, like last year. The final arrival will be in the heart of the Châtel resort, in Haute-Savoie. We should see the Dutch Demi Vollering, 2nd in 2022 and 2024 and winner of the general classification in 2023, who has just signed for two seasons with the French team FDJ-Suez, and the Polish Katarzyna Niewiadoma, the title holder.
This Tour will also be the big comeback for Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. The French runner with an immense track record (she has around fifteen world championship titles in various disciplines), just crowned Olympic cross-country champion, returned to the road after the Paris Games (where she won the ‘gold in mountain biking) to do the Great Loop with the Dutch team Visma-Lease a Bike.
