Tour de France Femmes Stage 1 Preview: Looping Clermont-Ferrand
Stage One — Clermont-Ferrand loop (124 km.) Sunday, July 23
Buckle your helmets because the 2023 Tour de France Femmes is on and the excitement is real. The 8-day race features 3 regions of France–Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and Occitanie. There are 4 flat stages, 2 hilly stages, 1 mountain stage with a summit finish on the Tourmalet, and 1 individual time trial. Look for the stage 7 summit finish and the ITT to be especially crucial to this race.
Each stage has a featured Strava segment worth checking out. Expect all of these segments to be annihilated as the peloton goes through.
Day 1 begins and ends in one of France’s oldest cities, Clermont-Ferrand. The Grand Départ of this second edition of the Tour de France Femmes will take place in the city’s Place de Jaude (city square), Clermont-Ferrand’s most historic and treasured spot.
Riders will cover 124 km. of the region’s winding roads to return back to where they started. Near the end of the stage riders will climb Côte de Durtol, a 1.7 km. category 3 climb averaging 7.2 percent. From there they’ll have 10 km. of fast downhill to the finish, with a slight pitch right before the line.
Côte de Durtol will most likely determine the first leader of the race, and there’s nothing like wearing yellow on day one.
Riders to watch
Right out of the starting gate of course we’ll have an eye on defending champion Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar)—at 40 the Dutch rider is having quite a year. She won La Vuelta Femenina in May making her the first woman to ever win all three of the women's cycling major races. She also won her fourth Giro Donne earlier this month and is set to retire at the end of this season.
It’ll be tough to beat Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx), though. Wiebes took the first stage in 2022, punching a sprint in the final 150 meters to defeat former Olympic champion Marianne Vos to the line. Watch for something like that to happen again.
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