Par For La Course?

With the women’s version of the Tour de France heading to the mountains, Felix Lowe wonders if women’s cycling is facing an uphill struggle

- Felix Lowe

Over the past few years, since introducing La Course to the final day of the Tour de France in Paris, race organiser ASO has faced a bit of a dilemma. Understandably, many cycling fans have found a competitive women’s criterium on the Champs-Élysées more exciting than watching tired men roll through the Parisian purlieus at 25kmh while quaffig champagne.

What to do? The venerable gentlemen of the ASO couldn’t have the one-day women upstaging its headline event. Transporting La Course to the Col d’Izoard in the Alps should have been a winning move – it potentially offers something excitingly different for women’s racing and allows the Women’s WorldTour to flex its muscles without treading on the toes of the perceived big boys. Instead, it has turned into a right bunfight.