The Tour de France Femmes Takes on the Tourmalet
Over sixty climbs in the Tour de France, the Col du Tourmalet has long been a kingmaker.
Now, during Stage 7 of the 2023 Tour de France Femmes on Saturday, this legendary grade has the chance to become a queenmaker.
The seventh of eight stages in this year’s Tour de France Femmes is the race’s only true mountain stage and what a mountain stage it is, giving the day not only the potential for fireworks but also the place where this year’s Tour de France Femmes might be won and lost.
Covering ninety kilometers from Lannezmezan to the top of the Tourmalet, stage 7 steadily pitches up until it reaches the first of the day’s two climbs. One of the Pyrenees’ other most famous climbs, the Col d’Aspin is a category 1 mountain that ascends to 1,490 meters over twelve kilometers, averaging 6.5 percent of gradient.
There will be no rest for the weary, as the peloton (which, by then will most assuredly be splintered to some degree) will climb the Tourmalet immediately after descending the Aspin.
Rising from 866 meters at its base to 2,110 at its peak, the Tourmalet is just over seventeen kilometers long at an average of 7.5 percent. Like many other marquee climbs, the Tourmalet starts off within reason, its lower slopes averaging anywhere between 4 and 7 percent of gradient.
However, once riders hit the sixth kilometer, the mountain pitches up past 8 percent and doesn’t relent until the climb is finished.
This isn’t the first time the Tourmalet has been featured in a women’s Tour de France, as the Tour Fémenin featured the climb as a summit finish in 1994, 1996, and 2000.
In fact, due to both its reputation and its difficulty, the Tourmalet was one of the mountains the women’s peloton relied on to prove to their myriad doubters that, yes, they too could climb.
And now, after a two-decade absence, the women are back to climb the mountain whose name can be translated as either “distance mountain” or, more forebodingly, “bad trip.”
But who will win the Tourmalet and, more importantly, will it have an impact on the overall standings of this year’s Tour de France Femmes?
It’s hard to overlook how strong the SD Worx team has been in the opening stages of the Tour, though their leader and current yellow jersey-wearer Lotte Kopecky is hardly a climber. They’ve been working to build her a big enough cushion over the past three stages that the Tourmalet (and the Aspin, for that matter) don’t affect her chances too negatively. And among their ranks is one of the world’s best climbers and last year’s Queen of the Mountains, Demi Vollering.
Then there are two of this year’s breakaway stars: Fenix-Deceuninck’s Julia Van de Velde and EF Education-Tibco-SVB’s Kathrin Hammes. We’ll also keep eyes on some of the other usual suspects like Lidl-Trek’s Elisa Longo Borghini, Canyon-SRAM’s Kasia Niewiadoma, and Team Uno-X’s Anouska Koster.
And even though this is her last year as a pro, you can never take your eyes off Movistar’s Annemiek van Vleuten, who dominated several last year’s climbs en route to a second-place finish in the race’s QOM competition (and an overall victory, of course).
Last year’s Tour de France Femmes featured the Super Planche des Belles Filles. This year, it’s the Tourmalet. Two years, two Tours, two marquee climbs, two names as synonymous with the Tour as they are with the very concept of suffering.
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