The first question those unfamiliar with cycling are likely to ask a professional bike racer is: Do you race the Tour de France? The three-week Grand Tour is a household name across the world that transcends the otherwise relatively niche sport of professional cycling. However, it is only since 2022 that riders in the current womens peloton have been able to answer in the affirmative.That year, the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift took place over eight stages with a Grand Dpart that ran in tandem with the final stage of the mens race on the Champs-lyses. It ended with a mountaintop finish on the Super Planche des Belles Filles in the Vosges mountains, and was dominated by now-retired Dutchwoman Annemiek van Vleuten a rider who defined an era of the womens side of the sport.While the 2022 event was hailed as the first Tour de France for women, there have, in fact, been several versions of a womens Tour in the past. As far back as 1955, journalist Jean Leulliot organised a womens Tour de France consisting of five stages, won by Irish-born Manx cyclist Millie Robinson. That race turned out to be a one-off, however, and it would be almost 30 years before the next one came about, in 1984. Marianne Martin, stood alongside men's champion Laurent Fignon, won the 1984 Tour de France Fminin. Getty Images Launched in the same year as the first Olympic road race for women, the 1984 Tour de France Fminin was introduced by the Socit du Tour de France (which later became part of Amaury Sport Organisation, or A.S.O the current owners of the race in 1992). That first edition took place over 18 stages in tandem with the mens event, using shortened versions of the mens stages.The first woman to take home a yellow jersey was American Marianne Martin who also claimed the polka-dot climbers jersey as well as winning two stages. Martin finished 3min 17sec ahead of Heleen Hage of the Netherlands and received a prize of $1,000.Between 1984 and 1989, the Tour Fminin dropped from 18 stages, with a total distance of 1,059km to 786km over 11 stages and a prologue. With limited media coverage and, therefore, little public interest in the race, the new race director of A.S.O, Jean-Marie Leblanc, put a stop to the event after the 1989 edition, citing its lack of financial viability. The timeline of the women's Tour de France 1955 Tour de France Fminin A total of 41 riders took part in the five-stage race in Normandy 1984-1989 Tour de France Fminin American Marianne Martin lifted the 1984 trophy 1992-2003 Tour of the EEC Women The race underwent several organiser and name changes 2005-2009 Grande Boucle Fminine Swiss rider Priska Doppmann took the win in 2005 2014-2021 La Course Marianne Vos won in 2014 and 2019 a joint record with Annemiek van Vleuten 2022-present Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2026 marks the fifth edition of the Tour de France Femmes Changing hands The first edition of the Tour de France Fminin took place in 1955, with Ireland's Millie Robinson (pictured) winning the five-stage race, but it didn't return for 29 years. Getty Images By 1992, new organisers had stepped in and began to run the Tour Fminin under a new name (after legal threats surrounding use of the Tour de France brand) with an August calendar slot. The races title evolved from Tour of the EEC Women to Tour Cycliste Fminin for five years, before becoming La Grande Boucle Fminine Internationale by 1998.The organisers tried to give the event a fittingly challenging parcours, with the 1995 race even featuring a stage finish atop Alpe dHuez. But money once again proved to be an issue. The riders faced long transfers as the organisers struggled to find towns willing to pay to host stages.Then, in 2003, Monoprix, one of the main sponsors of the race, withdrew over controversy concerning unpaid prize money, which enforced a hiatus before another organiser took over in 2005. They, however, faced the same struggles as their predecessors and, by the final edition of the race in 2009 won by Brit Emma Pooley it was only four stages long.Campaign for La Course Pioneering pro Marianne Vos won the inaugural 'La Course by Le Tour de France' in 2014. Getty Images Four years later, in 2013, a group of athletes and campaigners calling themselves Le Tour Entier (The Whole Tour) and consisting of former pro Kathryn Bertine, Pooley, Olympic champion Marianne Vos and triathlete Chrissie Wellington, spearheaded a petition for A.S.O to bring back a womens Tour de France. More than 93,000 people signed it.A.S.O responded by introducing La Course, a one-day race to be run alongside the final stage of the mens race in 2014. That year, the womens peloton appeared at the Tour de France for the first time since 1989 to race a criterium around the Champs-lyses.The inaugural La Course was heralded as a turning point for womens cycling and there was hope that more stages would be introduced in the future.However, after that first edition (won fittingly by Vos), the race largely remained a one-day affair, staying on the Champs-lyses for the first three editions before the organisers experimented with a two-day event in the mountains in 2017, then reverting to a short, one-day race held alongside one of the mens stages.Calls for a full womens race continued, with the introduction of the Womens WorldTour in 2016 proving the appeal and calibre of womens racing, and the groups Donnons des Elles au Vlo and Internation Elles riding the mens Tour de France route one day ahead of the peloton to highlight that women were capable of doing so.Read more on the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift Tour de France Femmes bikes 2026: whos riding what? 8 key questions answered, from race favourites to must-watch stages How much does a Tour de France Femmes bike cost? Lizzie Deignan (right) pipped Marianne Vos (left) to victory in the 2020 edition of La Course, at that point still a one-day race. Getty Images In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the race calendar and many professionals turned their attention to indoor racing. The virtual platform Zwift responded by hosting a Virtual Tour de France a five-stage race in place of the real-life event.We did it like we do all races in Zwift, which is equal prize purse, equal broadcast and equal distance, said Kate Veronneau, director of content and womens strategy at Zwift. I think it was the proof of concept A.S.O needed.With Zwift yielding the power and money and A.S.O holding the key to hundreds of years of tradition, the meeting of old and new proved to be the perfect storm to restart the conversation around a womens Tour de France.Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift what a curious partnership, Veronneau mused on the eve of the race. We have this historic institution upholding the longest-standing traditions of cycling, and the longest race, and then you have Zwift who introduced a virtual platform and dont play by anybodys rules.For a few days that summer, the womens peloton had a Tour de France that was equal to the mens race. The virtual race sparked renewed enthusiasm for a womens Tour de France, and when it returned later in the year as a one-day race, the consensus was the peloton deserved more.After rumours throughout the off season, Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme confirmed in May 2021 that a womens Tour de France would take place the following year. The right time The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift arrived in 2022 and, for the 2026 edition, runs over nine stages. Getty Images In the years between the final 2009 edition of the Grand Boucle Fminine and the 2022 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, womens cycling grew beyond recognition. Thanks in part to UCI stipulations, Womens WorldTour riders began to be paid a living wage, more races and all WorldTour events were broadcast live, and the depth within the peloton was increasing with every season. The time was right for a new era of a womens Tour.Its an exciting time right now to watch womens racing, said Veronneau. Its showing that this is years in the making, with support, investment and the visibility that the teams are able to build that depth, and that women are able to have the opportunity to develop as pro cyclists.The 2022 race featured eight stages 10 fewer than that first 1984 edition but the overall distance was only 25km shorter. The longer stages were yet another sign of the progress within womens racing. Indeed, stage 5 was 175km, making it the longest race day on the womens calendar by 10km, exceeding the UCI limit, meaning the organisers had to arrange special dispensation. The race also offered a 250,000 prize fund, including 50,000 for the winner 50 times what Martin received in 1984.Since that first edition, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift has become firmly established on the calendar, evoking all the reverence and fanfare that comes with the Tour de France brand.The riders have done justice to the parcours, delivering thrilling battles in some of the sports most iconic arenas, such as the Col du Tourmalet and Alpe dHuez, equal to any seen in the mens race. It has boosted the profiles of its former champions, and has already delivered a French yellow jersey winner in the form of Olympic mountain biking champion Pauline Ferrand-Prvot. The race ventured into the Pyrenees in 2023, with eventual champion Demi Vollering triumphing atop the Col du Tourmalet. Getty Images Last year, the organisers added a ninth stage as part of a concerted effort to grow the race in a sustainable way. While its still short of the 21 stages of the mens event or the 18 of the 1984 womens race, Veronneau argued that this was never the end goal. Id like to see the race build to a length that the Womens WorldTour is really excited about, that the teams are really excited about and that they can support, she said. But Im never going to say thats got to be three weeks.This years race also has nine stages and saw the peloton set off from Lausanne in Switzerland for its second foreign Grand Dpart. The parcours incorporates a 2km individual TT into Dijon on stage 4 the first since 2024s 6.3km stage 3 in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and the longest since the final stage of the 2023 race in Pau.In keeping with previous editions, riders also tick off yet another legendary summit, in the form of Mont Ventoux, as part of a parcours thats been dubbed mischievous by race director Marion Rousse. Mont Ventoux will take centre stage on Friday. Getty Images "There are pitfalls on practically every stage, she said during the launch of the 2026 route. There isnt a completely flat stage. Almost every day, theres a climb. Its a Tour de France Femmes that will be very difficult to keep up with mentally. You will have to be strong, because in the final, there is often a series of difficulties.The race concludes with a double-header weekend in Nice which, according to Rousse, is a great place to have fun with an unpredictable, hilly course. Its a bit like fireworks, she said, and thats what we wanted to reproduce in our Tour de France Femmes. The last stage around Nice, with four ascents of the Col dze, wont have a single metre of flat terrain the last variation, via the Col du Vinaigrier, is actually a slope of the Col dEze, with gradients of over 16%. Its going to be spectacular.Standing the test of time Pauline Ferrand-Prvot provided a home win for French fans in 2025. Getty Images After the false starts of previous womens editions of the Tour de France, A.S.O is determined that this version of the race will continue to be a success. Prudhomme told The Guardian in 2021: What we want to do is create a race that will stay the course, that will be set up and stand the test of time. What that means is that the race cannot lose money.Rousse nods towards the previous editions while acknowledging the modern races need to stay the course. Some will remember the epic duels of the 1980s Those valiant pioneers raced in what was a kind of curtain-raiser to the mens race, she wrote in the guide to the first edition of the race. This new race will thrive on its own and will maintain the intense focus that the Tour always receives through the course of another week of intense battle.The live-coverage statistics from the first four editions of the race show there is a huge appetite for womens racing, especially at the Tour. Last year, the broadcaster France Tlvisions reported that 25.7 million viewers tuned in to watch French national hero Ferrand-Prevot take victory in the final stage.Its a simple, essential message: just follow the racing, Veronneau said. I joke I have the easiest job in the world, in getting people excited about womens racing, because you watch one race and youre hooked. The personalities, the action Its just truly vibrant. It just needs the eyes on it and the broadcast opportunities, and then everything else is going to continue to fall into place. More on the Tour de France Femmes Tour de France Femmes: 8 key questions answered, from race favourites to must-watch stages Tour de France Femmes bikes 2026: whos riding what? How much does a Tour de France Femmes bike cost? SpongeBob SquarePants heads to the Tour de France Femmes aboard Factor One road bikes Padded bras cause controversy at Tour de France Femmes ahead of stage four time trial