Tour de France Femmes organiser announces 24 participating teams

ASO, the organisers of the Tour de France Femmes, has announced the 24 teams set to start the inaugural women's cycle stage race around France on July 24-31. 

All 14 UCI Women's WorldTour teams will participate in the race, with 10 Women's UCI Continental teams also featuring at the event. Three places were automatically handed to the top three Continental teams from 2021, which included Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling, Valcar-Travel & Service and Parkhotel Valkenburg. 

The remaining seven places were then based on wildcard invitations, with ASO providing spots to AG Insurance NXTG Team, Arkéa Pro Cycling Team, Cofidis Women Team, Le Col-Wahoo, Plantur-Pura, St Michel-Auber93 WE, and Stade Rochelais Charente-Maritime. 

In total, five French teams will compete at the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes, but Netherlands-based teams feature the most heavily, with six teams from the country participating in July. 

The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift starts on July 24 in Paris, on the same day the men's Tour de France race finishes. Covering eight stages in northern France, the women's race will finish on Sunday July 31 at La Planche des Belles Filles. 

The first stage of the female Tour de France will be bookended by a start and finish at France’s two most iconic sites: the Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Élysées. From the capital the women's peloton will then wind its way down to the Vosges with a stop off in Épernay and a few gravel roads around Troyes. 

All in all, the riders will face two mountain stages, both coming in the final two races, and three flat and hilly stages apiece. 

ASO announced the launch of the Tour de France Femmes in June 2021 to replace the one or two-day race La Course by Le Tour de France, held from 2014 to 2021. Zwift is a title sponsor of the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes, while every minute of every stage will be broadcast on Discovery Sports.