The peloton and fans have been readying for the battle for the yellow jersey to begin at the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, which got underway in Vannes on July 26. The top teams and riders in the world arrived to contest the fourth edition of the race - but after just three stages, several key favourites are already out of the race.
ASO unveiled the official route of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes last fall, revealing that it will cover 1,165 km across nine days of racing. The opening stages in Brittany will start on July 26, followed by a journey into the Alps, culminating in a finish atop Châtel on August 3.
The route notably does not include a time trial; however, there are plenty of opportunities for every type of rider, especially with the first four stages classified as either hilly or flat.
But after only three stages, two major favourites have been forced to abandon; Marlen Reusser (Movistar Team) was the first rider to leave on stage 1. She started the race after suffering from food poisoning. Giro d'Italia winner Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) was unable to start stage 3 following a gastrointestinal infection.
In addition, while they have not abandoned, Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) struggled through the opening stages and is no longer aiming for the general classification. Meanwhile, Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) remains in the race, but she crashed at the end of stage 3. Although she avoided losing time due to the 5km rule on stage 3, she appeared to be injured.
The climbers and GC contenders that are left in this race will come out to play for the five stages, of which there are the final two medium-mountain stages, and a finish with two back-to-back high mountain stages with key climbs over the Col de Madeleine, Col de Joux Plane, and a finale mountaintop finale at Châtel.
Cyclingnews examines the riders who are in contention for the coveted yellow jersey.
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Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney
Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney won the 2024 Tour de France by what she called a 'magical four seconds' after holding off the stage 8 winner Demi Vollering atop Alpe d'Huez to keep the yellow jersey in a dramatic finale.
It was a significant moment in cycling that marked the smallest margin of victory in both the women's and men's Tour de France history, beating the record set in the 1989 Tour de France, as Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon by eight seconds to win.
Niewiadoma has said that she approves of the "balanced" route for the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, despite there not being a time trial, and that she aims to be the first rider to win the new version of the women's Tour de France twice in a row.
She also stood on the podium in the first two editions; third overall (and won the mountains classification) in 2023 and third overall in 2022.
Canyon-SRAM-zondacrypto have other cards to play and support riders for Niewiadoma in the mountains, including Neve Bradbury, Ricarda Bauernfeind, and new signing Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, giving the team even more firepower in 2025.
Niewiadoma has had up-and-down performances so far this season, but shining moments included fourth at Tour of Flanders and Flèche Wallonne. While she was 11th behind her big GC rivals at La Vuelta Femenina in May, she's had plenty of time to dedicate to her preparations for the Tour de France come July.
She recently won the national road race title in Poland, and although unconfirmed to start the Giro d'Italia Women, she is still aiming for a peak at the Tour de France - and ready to fight for the yellow jersey.
Demi Vollering
2023 Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering wore the yellow jersey at the 2024 Tour for three stages, securing it after the stage 3 time trial in Rotterdam but then abruptly losing it to Kasia Niewiadoma after a crash on stage 5 into Amnéville.
Vollering tried to gain back the time lost in the finale stage 8 with an attack on the mid-stage Col du Glandon, which led to her win atop Alpe d'Huez, but it was not enough to hold off Niewiadoma, who won the overall title by just four seconds.
She moved from SD Worx-Protime to race for FDJ-SUEZ in 2025 and will have another shot at winning the Tour de France Femmes and will line up as the GC leader after winning the yellow jersey in the 2023 edition.
However, the team will have several cards to play with French riders Évita Muzic, who was fourth overall at the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, and FDJ-SUEZ new-signing Juliette Labous, who finished fourth overall in the 2022 edition.
Both riders had sub-par performances at the Giro d'Italia earlier this month, but they may be have gained some valuable training form and have time to turn things around in their attempts to support Vollering for the yellow jersey, while also giving the team two extra cards to play.
Vollering has had another remarkably successful spring campaign, winning Setmana Valenciana, Strade Bianche, La Vuelta Femenina, Itzulia Women, and Volta Catalunya, and was second at the recent Tour de Suisse.
She opted not to compete at the Giro d'Italia in early July to focus on a second win at the Tour - and a first for her French team FDJ-SUEZ.
Although she crashed on stage 3, she finished the stage, and didn't lose time due to 5km rule. The climbing doesn't start again until stage 5, before the higher mountains in the final stages of the race, so time will tell if Vollering can recover from the accident in Angers.
Niamh Fisher-Black
While Gaia Realini has become one of the top riders in the world over the last two seasons, showcasing her prowess on challenging summits, she has surprisingly not raced the two mountainous Grand Tours in July, at the Giro d'Italia or the Tour de France Femmes.
Lidl-Trek have instead decided to back New Zealander, Niamh Fisher-Black, a powerful option for the general classification and the mountain stages, of which there are plenty at this nine-day race.
Two-time Giro d'Italia winner and fellow Tour de France contender, Elisa Longo Borghini, has moved to UAE Team ADQ in 2025, and so the team will rely on Fisher Black at the French Grand Tour.
She joins the team having spent the previous four seasons with SD Worx-Protime where she won a stage of the Giro d'Italia last year.
She will lead the Lidl-Trek team at the Tour de France Femmes, supported by teammates Riejanne Markus, who joins the team from Visma-Lease a Bike.
The team will also field Shirin van Anrooij, who performed well in the GC at the recent Giro d'Italia, along with Lucinda Brand and Amanda Spratt, Emma Norsgaard, and Elisa Balsamo for the sprints.
Évita Muzic
Évita Muzic is one of the co-leaders of FDJ-SUEZ, even as the team have also signed Demi Vollering and Juliette Labous in 2025.
She has proven her strengths at the French Grand Tour, finishing 8th overall in 2022 and fourth overall in 2024. Her role as a contender for the Tour de France Femmes is only enhanced by the powerful addition of riders like Vollering and Labous, and the team is likely to line up with all three cards to play during the nine-day race.
In the past two seasons alone, she has risen to the occasion at many of the biggest races, 6th overall at La Vuelta Femenina in 2023 and fifth in 2024, where she won the stage to La Laguna Negra. Vinuesa and finished second on the stage to Valdesquí. Comunidad de Madrid.
She also finished second overall at Vuelta a Burgos and had a strong fourth place at La Flèche Wallonne, often racing head-to-head against the likes of Vollering, all in 2024.
She showed that she was one of the strongest and most consistent climbers at the Tour de France Femmes, where she finished fifth in Le Grand Bornand and third atop Alpe d'Huez, to secure fourth place in the overall classification.
She hasn't had the strongest early season this year, but a second place at Durango-Durango tells us that she is working toward building her form for the Tour de France in July.
She just finished the racing at the Giro d'Italia, where she was 9th on the mountaintop to Monte Nerone and 13th overall, the high-level racing may have helped to improve her form ahead of the Tour de France.
Pauliena Rooijakkers ane Puck Pieterse
Pauliena Rooijakkers turned heads at the 2024 Tour de France when she finished third overall, just behind the four-second battle between overall winner Kasia Niewiadoma and runner-up Demi Vollering.
She made the move from Canyon-SRAM to Fenix-Deceuninck in 2024, which gave her a solid opportunity to compete as a sole general classification leader in many of the big races on the WorldTour.
She has had strong results to back up this role in previous years, with second overall at Itzulia Women in 2022 and multiple top performances across hilly one-day races.
However, 2024 was her best year with her new team finishing 6th overall at the UAE Tour, sixth at Flèche Wallonne, ninth overall at La Vuelta Femenina, fourth overall at the Giro d'Italia Women and 3rd overall at the Tour de France Femmes.
She hasn't had the same start to her season as she did last year, but she just finished a very strong Giro d'Italia where she was 4th overall, showing great form ahead of the Tour de France.
Fenix-Deceuninck have not confirmed their team for the Tour de France, however, and they have another potential contender in Puck Pieterse, who won a stage and the best young rider classification last year.
Pieterse has made it her goal to, one day, win the yellow jersey, and she just might be the team's go-to GC contender at this Tour de France Femmes.
With climbing on the menu for the two final stages of the Tour de France Femmes in 2025, watch for Rooijakkers and Pieterse to show their consistency once again and play their tactical cards into Châtel.
Anna van der Breggen
Anna van der Breggen confirmed that she'll make a stunning return to road racing in 2025, three years after retiring.
She won the road race at the Olympics in 2016, three world titles in the road race in 2018 and then in the time trial and road race in 2020. Other career highlights include a record seven consecutive victories at La Flèche Wallonne, four overall titles at the Giro d'Italia, and Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold, and twice winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
She hung up her wheels at the end of the 2021 season to take on a directeur sportif role at SD Worx-Protime. But she returned this year, racing in SD Worx-Protime colours where she could potentially pick up where she left off in the Grand Tours as one of the top riders in the world.
The team have lost Demi Vollering to FDJ-SUEZ, but they retained reigning world champion Lotte Kopecky on a long-term deal through to the end of 2028.
While Kopecky initially indicated that she was targeting the Tour de France Femmes this year, it was always understood that Van der Breggen would be both supporting that ambition while also giving the team a second option in the overall classification.
Now that Kopecky has confirmed that she is no longer going for the GC, after struggling through the opening stages of the Tour de France Femmes, it appears that Van der Breggen has been thrust back into the limelight as the sole GC leader.
Winning the Tour de France would fill a gap in Van der Breggen's extensive palmares, and she certainly has the racing experience to back up a yellow-jersey bid. She has had a promising spring campaign with a second at Strade Bianche and third overall at La Vuelta Femenina.
However, her performance at the Giro d'Italia, a race she has won four times, did not go as well as she had hoped. She finished a respectable sixth overall in the general classification, but was not able to stay with the main climbers through the high mountains. After reflecting on her performance, she stated that it gave her "the incentive [she] needed" ahead of her next big goal, the Tour de France Femmes.
Juliette Labous
Juliette Labous has become a French fan favourite at her home Tour de France and a podium hopeful, once again, for the 2025 edition.
She is a quiet contender, having slowly but steadily risen to become one of the best riders in the world over the previous eight seasons with the various versions of team Sunweb, Team DSM and now Team dsm-firmenich PostNL.
With the transfer to FDJ-SUEZ in 2025, Labous will be one of three contenders alongside Vollering and Muzic.
She has finished fourth, fifth and ninth overall at the Tour de France Femmes in the previous three editions, also earning the Virage Juliette as fans and members of Le Vélo Club Morteau Montbenoit celebrated with a bend on the Côte des Fins dedicated in her name on stage 6 in 2024.
She has made a conscious effort over recent years to improve her power on the climbs and in the time trial, which has made her a more complete rider suited to the longer stage races. Those efforts have paid off with the overall victory at Vuelta a Burgos in 2022 and the summit stage 7 victory atop Passo del Maniva at the Giro d'Italia Women, and then there was a telling second place overall at the Giro in 2023.
In 2024, she finished fourth overall at La Vuelta Femenina, third overall at Itzulia Women, fifth at Tour de Suisse and Giro d'Italia Women, and just off the podium at the Olympics time trial in Paris, and then went on to take 9th overall at the Tour.
This year, she finished in the top 10 at the most challenging one-day races; Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, Amstel Gold and Flèche Wallonne. She also took fifth overall at La Vuelta Femenina, even while supporting Vollering to the overall win, and fifth at Vuelta a Burgos.
A telling performance at the Giro d'Italia earlier this month, where Labous finished 29th overall, showed that she still had some work to do on the climbs and towards her overall contender objectives.
Sarah Gigante
Sarah Gigante debuted at the Tour de France Femmes in 2024 where she finished seventh overall, despite facing several challenges along the way.
She knew that the sprinter-friendly and technical Grand Départ in Rotterdam would be difficult to navigate, and she had lost nearly three minutes by the time the race reached France.
She slowly gained places as the race hit the mountains, and while she was 11th on the ascent to Le Grand Bornand, she made up for that on her climb to the top of Alpe d'Huez on the final stage, finishing 8th and moving up from 17th to 7th overall.
With a less technical Grand Départ and a wider selection of mountains across the latter half of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, we could see Gigante improve on her overall placings in the hunt for the yellow jersey.
Gigante did not race this early season, but she did finish 13th at the Tour of Norway and 12th at the Tour de Suisse, both in June, before a head-tuning performance at the Giro d'Italia, where she both won the mountaintop stages to Pianezze and Monte Nerone and finished third place overall.
Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, who was expected to be a second card to play at the Tour de France, was not included in the roster; however, Kim Le Court offered the team a potential stage winner and top GC rider.
Le Court has already had an exceptional start to the Tour de France Femmes, finishing second on stage 1 and third on stage 2, where she took the yellow jersey, until losing to Vos on stage 3.
The team are also protecting Gigante; however, until the race hits the high mountains, where she will be able to shine.
Marion Bunel
Marion Bunel departed St Michel-Mavic-Auber93 and has jumped up to the WorldTour with Visma-Lease a Bike in 2025, where she could play a leadership role at the Tour de France Femmes.
The team also signed Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who returned to road racing after a sparkling mountain bike career, so the two French riders could be co-leaders at their home race.
Bunel turned heads when she finished fifth on the Jebel Hafeet ascent to take fifth overall at the UAE Tour in 2024. She went on to ninth at Tour de Romandie and won the overall title at the Tour de l'Avenir Femmes and second overall at the Tour de l'Ardeche.
She was recently third at Volta a Catalunya and ninth at Tour de Suisse; however, she is not yet confirmed to Visma-Lease a Bike's Tour de France roster.
With a strong team to support her in the mountains and with experienced riders like Marianne Vos and Ferrand-Prévot on her side, Bunel could become the revelation of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, if she is indeed on the start line.
Mavi García
Mavi Garcia has been one of the riders we've anticipated to be among the GC standings across La Vuelta Femenina, Giro d'Italia Women and at the Tour de France Femmes in recent years.
The former Spanish Champion excels across hilly terrain and in tough, tactical racing, often ensuring that she is in a position to fight for a breakaway or finish among the selection on major ascents.
Although she didn't have her best season in 2024, she improved ahead of the summer stage races, having finished fourth overall at Itzulia Women and just recently winning the Vuelta Ciclista Andalucia. She also finished ninth overall at the Giro d'Italia Women, sixth in the road race at the Olympic Games and fifth overall at the Tour de Romandie.
Her best place at the Tour de France Femmes was 10th in 2022, but she is likely to lead the Liv-AlUla-Jayco team once again in the event in 2025.
This year, she has had a stronger start to the season with a fifth at Strade Bianche, seventh overall at Itzulia Women, and eighth overall at the Tour de Suisse, she is definitely one to watch for a top 10 at the Tour de France.
She has already had her best showing to date after securing a stage victory on stage 2, attacking solo with 10km to go and holding off the sprinters to take the win in Quimper.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot
Ferrand-Prévot retired from cross-country mountain biking after winning the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Paris, and she returned to road racing at the World Championships in Zürich in 2024.
She announced that she would be racing with Visma-Lease a Bike on a three-year contract from 2025-2027, with her sights set on competing at the Tour de France Femmes.
Although she hasn't raced a full road season since 2018, outside of competing at the French Road Championships in 2019 and 2021, Ferrand-Prévot has been a key rider to watch for almost every race she lined up at in 2025, so far, and she has the history and experience to back up a strong season.
The French rider made history in the 2014-2015 season at the age of 23 when she became the first cyclist to hold world titles in the three disciplines simultaneously. She won the elite women's road race world title in 2014 Ponferrada, the XCO cross-country world title in 2015 in Vallnord, and the cyclo-cross world title in 2015 in Tabor. Since then, she has amassed a total of 15 elite world titles across road, mountain bike, cyclocross and gravel.
In stage racing, Ferrand-Prévot has won the overall title at Emakumeen Bira and finished second overall at the Giro d'Italia Women, two of the biggest stage races in the world for women in 2014 while racing for Rabobank-Liv alongside Vos and Van der Breggen. She competed for Rabobank-Liv for six seasons, 2012-2016, before moving over to Canyon-SRAM for four seasons, 2017-2020.
This year, she has turned heads once again with a third at Strade Bianche, a second at the Tour of Flanders, and a victory at Paris-Roubaix. She wasn't happy with her performance at La Vuelta Femenina, of which she did not finish, but vowed to come back stronger for the next stage races.
She is confirmed to compete at the Tour de France Femmes in July, and cannot be discounted as a contender for an overall place. If she manages this feat, she would be the first French rider to win the Tour de France since Bernard Hinault won the men's title in 1985 and Jeannie Longo won the women's title in 1989.
