Past Commonwealth Games Road Champion, super sprinter and now team manager Rochelle Gilmore called out in the media this week for a Women’s Tour de France that could be held in conjunction with the men’s event.
The irony of course is that nearly twenty years ago women raced an 18 day Women’s Tour de France that was held right along with the Men’s event, with the women finishing 2-3 hours earlier than the men each day. The winner was American rider Marianne Martin, who beat out Dutchwoman Heleen Hage by 3 minutes for the maillot jaune with fellow Yank Deborah Schumway in third. Martin also won the QOM
The event was held during the last two weeks of the men’s event (In which a young Greg Lemond placed 3rd). The women covered 616 miles (991km) over 18 stages, with Martin leading them home with a time of 29 hours, 39 minutes and 2 seconds having taken over the lead on the 14th stage. Interestingly enough the American women were riding for the North Jersey Women’s Bicycle Club as the USCF didn’t send a team - the Tour conflicted with the LA Games. Teams from England , Canada , France and the Netherlands
Even Jeannie Longo was young in 1986
Sadly the event sputtered out over the years. It was first separated from the Men’s event as the Tour Féminin, and then lost the rights in 1997 to call itself the Women’s Tour de France, becoming instead the Grande Boucle. By the time the event coughed its last death rattle in 2009, it was a four day event that in the words of winner Emma Pooley was more of a “Petite Boucle”
Oh snap. The Brit dissed in French.
What is mind numbing to people that have followed the women’s side of the sport is that the demise of the race seemed to trend directly opposite to women’s racing on the whole. In the twenty years since those women’s raced onto the Champs-Elysées the sport has made monumental strides in terms of professionalism and depth of field. The length of the Olympic road race has grown from being the only cycling event for women with 45 participants racing 87 kilometres (they did two laps of the marathon course) in 1984 to racing 140km in 2012 (the IOC has kept the field small however).
Nowadays 8 Emma Trott's could fit in the gaps these
women are leaving between riders.
Women from Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania now vie for World titles in a breadth of disciplines.
And yet the big tours have shrivelled up and died. The Tour de L’Aude which had grown from a small race around one location to the premier women’s stage race in the world has folded up shop and the Route Feminin suffered a similar fate. L’Aude had been the site of considerable Canadian success with Denise Kelly, and Sara Neil scoring back to back podiums in 1989 and 1990, Linda Jackson taking the overall GC win in 1997. Interestingly all three women are still involved in the sport with Kelly working for the CCA, Jackson running Tibco and Neil working as an enforcer for Trek-Red Tuck Racing.
Name the ground breaking Canadian Women hot of a Tour de L'Aude TTT win (Hint Jackson's not in the photo)
The Giro Donne is currently the only marquee “Grand Tour” for women’s cycling, having been first held in 1988. There is no other 10 day stage race in the world for Women. (It should be noted that if a women’s Tour were to be held in conjunction with the Men’s event it would actually clash with the Giro Donne).
Maybe the time is right to reverse the trend- this summer’s Exergy Tour provided an excellent showcase for the best women racers to strut their stuff (hopefully the titles sponsor’s financial woes are being over reported. And it reminded people of another demised event the ground breaking Ore-Ida/Powerbar/Hewitt Packard Women’s Challenge held in the same region (who’s history is deserving of its own blog).
It also had Patrick Demspey as a podium girl.
After all it turns out Greg Lemond might not have been the first American to win the Tour de France.
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