Women do compete in La Course during the Tour de France, but the stage race most comparable to the men’s Tour is actually La Route de France Féminine. Traditionally held in August, the seven-stage race has provided women a platform for stage racing for years, and has been considered one of France’s most prestigious women’s pro cycling events since its inception in 2006.
But this year, it won’t be happening, thanks to some scheduling conflicts with the UCI. La Route organizers Hervé and Brigitte Gerardin took to Facebook and the event website to publish a scathing missive to the UCI, calling the World Tour scheduling ‘scandalous.’
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Translated to English, their note reads: "After more than ten years of organizations passed at the highest international level, the Route de France Féminine 2017 is put into difficulty by an inconsistency at the level of the Feminine International calendar."
When the Route de France Féminine was created, it was intended to continue the tradition of the Women's Tour de France and the Grande Boucle Féminine. But this year, the Women's UCI Race Calendar was packed in mid-August, when the race is normally run. The week it would have been held is now dominated by European road race Championships and two WorldTour events.
Why the oversight? "In 2017, we wanted to integrate the new calendar of the WorldTour Feminine, the access was unfortunately refused by the UCI for the following reason: our file sent mid-August arrived too late to the UCI!?!” the organizers wrote. Their efforts to reach out to the UCI in November were met with silence, they explained.
“It is sad this is being cancelled,” says racer Amber Neben, who won in 2007 and again in 2016. “It is one of the longer stage races on the calendar, and it is one of the main stage races in France. I've done it multiple times in its multiple forms over the years. Hopefully, it will make a comeback next year at a place on the calendar where it does not have to compete with the World Tour events.”
“It seems like we are always trying to make cycling bigger, but there are still battles within,” Neben added. “Hopefully, there can be more strategic design to the calendar next year. Alternatively, it would be amazing if someway, somehow the powers that be could get together and find a way to run a seven-to-ten day stage race during the men's Tour de France. Not the same, but something similar to what the La Route de France has done. There is such an awesome history to cycling in France that there needs to be a women's tour there. Hopefully, things will come back in 2018!”
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Thankfully, the Gerardins remain hopeful about the future, concluding: "We do not give up. We will be organizing a women's cycling event in 2018 with a new edition of the Women's Route de France, provided that we find an honorable place on the international calendar and we call on all French and foreign female cycling players to support us in this reconquest."
