Tour de France Femmes – 5 Things

The tale of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes is mainly another chapter in the splintering of talent in the women’s pro peloton. Where Team SD Worx was once all conquering, two of their primary GC riders have found other teams to race for, Demi Vollering to FDJ-Suez, Marlen Reuser to Movistar. With the return of Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (see below) and the rise of Kasia Niewiadoma and Elisa Balsamo, not to mention Elisa Longo-Borghini at UAE, the playing field is flat and wide open, as was this Tour de France. Despite that, this was not a particularly thrilling race, which I’ll explain.

1. Allez! PFP! – All of France feels good about a French woman winning the Tour, and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot executed a masterful plan to achieve that goal. After announcing her return to road racing (with X Mountain Bike WCs and a gold medal in her pocket), it seemed only a matter of time before she began racking up big results. She’d famously targeted a TdF win within three years, but went ahead and did at the first time of asking. She won stages 8 and 9 in swashbuckling fashion and is, despite what I’m going to say below (#5) a very worthy winner.
2. The Runners-Up – PFP’s victory can’t be called a surprise or an upset. No rider that strong can ever be less than a contender, but there are some other women who will be deeply disappointed with their results, beginning with Demi Vollering (2023 winner) and Kasia Niewiadoma (2024 winner), who finished second and third on the podium respectively, but 3+ minutes down on the winner. Vollering’s move to FDJ hasn’t quite worked out, though they won the overall team category, although Vollering may be a victim of her own success. Her last two seasons have been nearly faultless. Niewiadoma was always close but never quite at the front of this one. She would certainly have hoped for better than third.
3. What’s Wrong with Lotte Kopecky? – Another rider probably suffering from elevated expectations, although when you’re wearing the World Champion’s stripes, that’s natural. I’d wager that Kopecky has been riding so hard for so long, that she’s just fallen off the edge of what’s sustainable in terms of fitness. It was odd not to see her in the mix in France this summer. Team SD Worx didn’t have a great race, despite Lorena Wiebes winning two stages. They didn’t finish with a single rider in the top ten on GC.
4. Maëva Squiban – Many had not heard the young Frenchwoman’s before this Tour, but they know it now. Winner of back-to-back stages from brave and well-calculated breakaways, Squiban announced herself as a future contender. Team UAE spends its money liberally, but also wisely. She also took the race’s overall Combativity award.
5. A Race Not Worthy of This Race – The organizers let the racers down this year. Nine stages aren’t enough for a Grand Tour. This is something I say all the time about the women’s calendar. But even beyond that, these particular nine stages made for very little drama. Going into Stage 8, the top ten were all within a minute or so of each other, because none of the preceding stages had done anything to force gaps or provide opportunities for the stronger riders to separate themselves. The whole race really came down to Stage 8. Disappointing. There is so much talent in the women’s peloton. They really deserve much more than this.