Women's Cycling Weekly Issue 77
A weekly curation of women's cycling news and content straight to your inbox
Hello! Welcome to Women’s Cycling Weekly issue 77 🚴♀️
WELL.
Better late than never I guess?
I can’t believe it’s already a week since the Tour de France Femmes wrapped up on the top of the Super Planche des Belles Filles 🤯. Tilda and I spent every day of the race sat next to one another in the press room, or on top of mountains, creating the Hash Tag Content that is required of our day jobs. Not once did we have any capacity to put out WCW, which was a shame, but I’m sure that if you subscribe to this you did not miss out on everything that was coming out of the race.
There is still so much to digest from the Tour de France Femmes and we recorded a Freewheeling episode doing exactly that. It’s telling that many of our favourite moments from the race were little to do with racing and a lot to do with the human side of the sport, from the crowds (THE CROWDS!!) to the reactions from those who experienced both the highs and lows of the Tour.
One of the things that stood out for many of us was the wonderful yet novel experience of a predominantly female press room.
If you read or listened to any of the work we put out during the race then a huge thank you to you!
Who’s on count down for next year already? 🙋
On top of all the post-TDFF excitement there’s transfers going on left, right, and centre. Rather than list them all here I will refer you to this page which is being kept up to date.
Amy x
News 📰
Lorena Wiebes will be leaving Team DSM at the end of this season. Her new team is yet to be confirmed, but SD Worx have not denied reports that the Dutch rider will be racing for them in 2023.
Zwift has confirmed a further three years of sponsoring the Tour de France Femmes.
It’s only just ended but we’re already looking ahead to the next Tour de France: Marion Rousse said on Sunday that seven-rider teams and a time trial could be on the cards for 2023.
Marianne Vos was controversially DSQd from the Postnord Vårgårda WestSweden road race on Sunday for adopting the so-called ‘puppy paws’ position for all of…three seconds. It took the commissaries 40 minutes to tell Vos about her disqualification. The win then went to Trek-Segafredo’s Audrey Cordon-Ragot.
Read 🗞️
‘Nostalgia and celebration - Women's Tour de France pioneers reunite in Paris’
‘Commentary is a bit of closure for me’ — an interview with Gracie Elvin who, when she isn’t contributing to this fantastic podcast called Freewheeling, commentates on racing for Australian TV.
Race director Marion Rousse says it’s important to savour this edition before thinking about the next.
Shirin van Anrooij ‘learned to suffer more than ever’ at the TDFF.
The one and only Iris Slappendel on her unique perspective of the TDFF and what she would like to see the future of women’s racing look like.
For the tech lovers: AVV’s yellow Canyon that she didn’t want to ride.
Anya Louw only joined AG Insurance NXTG at the beginning of July. Her first race with the team? Tour de France Femmes. The 21-year-old Aussie took it all in her stride, though.
It me already thinking about next year’s race, in which I would quite like to see AVV racing up Alpe d’Huez.
I stood at the top of La Super Planche des Belles Filles for hours for this.
Listen 🎧
If you missed out on any of the Freewheeling Tour de France dailies or the mini pods then you can catch up by searching ‘Freewheeling’ wherever you get your podcasts!
We temporarily dragged ourselves out of the post-TDFF hole earlier this week to do a roundup of the race from our different perspectives. No race analysis just vibes. Watch out for that on Monday!
Plus, our friends from The Cycling Podcast Féminin were also putting out daily pods from the race — catch up with those here.
Results 🏆
Road
🇫🇷 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift
Stage 1: Lorena Wiebes (DSM)
Stage 2: Marianne Vos (JVW)
Stage 3: Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ)
Stage 4: Marlen Reusser (SDW)
Stage 5: Lorena Wiebes (DSM)
Stage 6: Marianne Vos (JVW)
Stage 7: Annemiek van Vleuten (MOV)
Stage 8: Annemiek van Vleuten (MOV)
🟡 Overall
Annemiek van Vleuten (MOV)
Demi Vollering (SDW) +3:48
Kasia Niewiadoma (WMN) +6:35
🔴 Mountains: Demi Vollering (SDW)
🟢 Sprints: Marianne Vos (JVW)
⚪ Young rider: Shirin van Anrooij (TFS)
🇸🇪 Postnord Vårgårda WestSweden TTT
🥇Trek-Segafredo 🥈 Team SD Worx 🥉 Team DSM
🇸🇪 Postnord Vårgårda WestSweden RR
🥇Audrey Cordon-Ragot 🥈 Pffeifer Georgi 🥉 Valerie Demey
🇬🇧 Commonwealth Games road race
🥇Georgia Baker 🇦🇺🥈 Neah Evans 🏴🥉 Sarah Roy 🇦🇺
🇫🇷 CIC-Tour Féminin International des Pyrénées (2.1)
Stage 1a (TTT): EF Education First Tibco-SVB
Stage 1b: Krista Doebel-Hickok (TIB)
Stage 2: Krista Doebel-Hickok (TIB)
Stage 3: Silvia Zanardi (BPK)
Overall: Krista Doebel-Hickok (TIB)
MTB
🇺🇸 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Snowshoe - DHI #6 & XCO/XCC #7
DH juniors: 🥇 Gracey Hemstreet 🇨🇦 🥈 Aimi Kenyon 🇬🇧 🥉 Izabela Yankova 🇧🇬
DH elite:🥇 Camille Balanche 🇨🇭 🥈 Myriam Nicole 🇫🇷 🥉 Nina Hoffmann 🇩🇪
XCC: 🥇 Gwendalyn Gibson 🇺🇸 🥈 Anne Terpstra 🇳🇱 🥉 Jenny Rissveds 🇸🇪
XCO U23:🥇 Noëlle Buri 🇨🇭 🥈 Luisa Daubermann 🇩🇪 🥉 Madigan Munro 🇺🇸
XCO elite:🥇 Alessandra Keller 🇨🇭 🥈 Jenny Rissveds 🇸🇪 🥉 Anne Terpstra 🇳🇱
🇨🇦 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Mont Sainte Anne - DHI #7 & XCO/XCC #8
DH juniors: 🥇 Phoebe Gale 🇬🇧 🥈Izabela Yankova 🇧🇬 🥉 Gracey Hemstreet 🇨🇦
DH elite: 🥇 Vali Höll 🇦🇹🥈Nina Hoffmann 🇩🇪 🥉 Eleonora Farina 🇮🇹
XCC: 🥇 Jolanda Neff 🇨🇭🥈Gwendalyn Gibson 🇺🇸 🥉 Alessandra Keller 🇨🇭
XCO U23 women: 🥇 Noëlle Buri 🇨🇭 🥈Madigan Munro 🇺🇸 🥉 Sara Cortinovis 🇮🇹
🇬🇧 Commonwealth Games, Birmingham
🥇 Evie Richards 🏴 🥈 Zoe Cuthbert 🇦🇺 🥉 Candice Lill 🇿🇦
Upcoming Races 📆
Road
Tour of Scandinavia (2.WWT)
Tuesday 9th August - Sunday 14th August
Live on GCN+/Eurosport
MTB
🇨🇦 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Mont-Sainte-Anne XCO
Sunday 7th August: Elite women: 18:00 CEST. Watch live on Red Bull TV.
Tour Tales
From ‘Lorena Wiebes’s baby’ to La Super Planche des Belles Filles the Tour de France Femmes had it all. Here are some assorted moments which I am too tired to write about but can present to you in pictorial form:
File under: things we love to see
We don’t really cover track at WCW but Laura Kenny will always get a pass. She has had a run of bad health and bad luck but the six-time Olympic medalist won gold in the scratch race at the Commonwealth Games last week. This honest interview that she gave after her win deserved to be shared:
That’s all 👋
Thanks for reading Women’s Cycling Weekly!
If you liked what you read you can buy WCW a ‘coffee’ on Ko-Fi.
Until next time!
Thank you, Amy and Tilda!! The TDFF was such an incredible experience even just watching at home, and you and Freewheeling were a huge part of that for me. I can’t wait to watch more women’s cycling with your reporting. Thanks!