Could the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift finally be the year to get a winner for the second time? A week after Tadej Pogačar claimed his fifth men’s title, the fifth edition of the women’s race has yet to see a rider back up their victory at the biggest race of all.
Annemiek van Vleuten, the great champion of the 2010s, was one of countless riders punished by the lack of racing opportunities and infrastructure in women’s cycling. Her Tour de France victory in 2022, age 39, was a statement of defiance in the autumn of her career. Her fourth place the following year, after four consecutive Grand Tour victories plus a World Championship title, proved she bowed out as close to the top as physically possible, second maybe only to her former rival – more on her shortly.
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Instead, 2023 was the year Demi Vollering proved her worth as the next dominant rider of her generation, a woman capable of winning on all kinds of uphill, who quickly gathered the public profile and endorsements of blue-chip sponsors. Yet results did not pan out as such, the following year tensions within SD-Worx between Vollering, Lotte Kopecky, sprint ambitions and their directeur sportif – more on her shortly – led to lost time that the high mountains could not claw back. Instead Kasia Niewiadoma took an unexpected victory, only her second win in five years.
Then last year France awoke. The previous year’s dramatic Alpe d’Huez finale was diminished in spectacle by poor crowds, but last year’s back-to-back mountain stage wins by Pauline Ferrand-Prevot proved French grumblers did not need to sink into a morose reminiscence over Bernard Hinault once more, for the biker from the mountains had swept up all love and affection the nation had to give. Organisers will be hoping for similarly enthusiastic scenes on Mont Ventoux next weekend.
Predicting this year’s race is therefore a conundrum. Niewiadoma returns but Vollering again starts as a favourite, boosted by a red hot spring of classics victories and a maiden title at the Giro d’Italia. She has a team entirely devoted to her ambition, all bar two of her teammates have won classics or top-10’d grand tours in their own right. Besides Ferrand-Prevot, the strongest French climbers will likely be working to deny a second title for their compatriot.
Ferrand-Prevot arrives short of race days but high on altitude preparation, fingers crossed her results (regardless of her) do not spark a discussion on race weight as seen last year. The 34-year-old has also hinted she has worked significantly on her time trial, which returns after a year out to the race, and will be key to limiting losses to her rivals.
Elisa Longo Borghini and Marlen Reusser will each try to improve on their records at this race where neither have podiumed before. Reusser enters in excellent form from her home race, the Tour de Suisse, whilst attention is deflected off Longo Borghini and onto her teammate Paula Blasi.
After only switching full-time to the sport in 2024 after a youth running middle-distances and competing in triathlon, the 23-year-old claimed a stunning victory in the Vuelta Femenina in May after distancing her rivals on the Angliru of all mountains. She enters her first Tour with the benefits of hope, excitement and without the heavy weight of expectation.
Elsewhere, Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes return to put the fear of all that’s holy into any team trying to win a stage that ends with a large-ish group coming towards a flat finish. But their SD-Worx team cannot escape the presence of Anna van der Breggen.
Having battled compatriot Van Vleuten for much of the 2010s, the Dutchwoman retired in 2021 having won all she could win, only to return last year after finding the SD Worx team car provided too much of an inner pang, a fear of missing out. The announcement of her return blindsided Vollering, who promptly removed her then boss from viewing her training data before switching team at the end of the year.
After an inconsistent 2025, Van der Breggen this year led both the Vuelta and Giro into the final stage, only to be undermined by mountain attacks from rivals who sat on her wheel whilst she rode a hard pace that she could not break free from. The days when she was the strongest rider in the race are over, and the 36-year-old will require racing nous to contend at the biggest race of all.
Between both SD Worx ends of the race sits the breakaway, who have proved to be excellent stage hunters at the Tour in years gone by. Last year was Maëva Squiban’s time to shine, whilst Puck Pieterse, Yara Kastelijn and Cedrine Kerbaol are all former stage winners who may seek similar opportunities. Kerbaol’s EF team is packed with aggressive riders including Noemi Rüegg, world champion Magdeleine Vallieres and Britain’s Alice Towers.
Towers is one of six British riders in the race, up from four in 2025. Millie Couzens and Pfeiffer Georgi return from last year whilst Robyn Clay and Zoe Bäckstedt make their Tour de France debut, with the latter undoubtedly targeting the stage 4 time trial. Josie Nelson completes the sextet with her third Tour start. Mia Griffin and Fiona Mangan also return to the Tour de France Femmes, representing Ireland, but there’s no space on UAE for sprinter and national champion Lara Gillespie.
The race itself is the longest since restarting in 2022, nine stages long and a third of them starting in Switzerland. The first should be a reduced uphill finish without serious time gaps, the second looks a likely bunch sprint. If there’s to be a breakaway ambush on this year’s general classification, Stage 3 is a prime candidate. A category-1 climb straight out of Geneva, before significant descending in the second half of the stage will make any chase difficult.
Stage 4’s 21km TT to Dijon contains a notable climb and should kick the yellow jersey battle into life. Stages 4 and 5 should see a feisty breakaway battle for mountains points though whether the peloton will be motivated to bring the break back depends if any favourite fancies a speculative attack on the final steep climbs that peak 11 and 16km from the line respectively.
Friday brings Mont Ventoux, and with it ideally the most stunning images of the entire race. However it might not warrant the title of queen stage, bearing in mind what awaits on Sunday after what should be a bunch finish on Stage 8 into Nice, barring a flier on a late incline.
99km, 4 ascents of the Col d’Eze, a climb most of the peloton will know like the back of their hand before the race and will have burnt into their brain by the end. Taking inspiration from the final stage of the men’s Paris-Nice, organisers will be hoping for carnage, speculative attacks from riders unhappy with their GC position – and there should be a few – and teams unable to control the race on steep gradients. The final descent down to the Promenade des Anglais could put the finale of Milan-Sanremo to shame.
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In contrast to the hommes, which this year quickly settled into arguments over history books and the merits of ‘witnessing greatness’, the women’s race is best served by focusing on the here and now of a race that begins with meaningful jeopardy, and no rider with supremacy over the peloton. That is not to diminish the historic persistent campaigning of the prior generation of professionals who lobbied for years for equal races to the men, for the organisational might of A.S.O. to do better than one-day tokenistic criteriums, even if La Course could be on the Champs-Élysées.
But where the Tour de France Hommes’ long history bore down on this year’s race as doping scrutiny re-mounted, the women’s race would benefit from its organisational independence from a long history, lest we sink into Jeannie Longo discourse once again. The racing before us warrants our attention, and there’s nothing tokenistic about being drawn in by the spectacle that should unfold.
