14 | July 25, 2019 | Cycling Weekly
NEWSA
year on from the dramatic
finale when Anna van Vleuten
caught and passed compatriot
Anna van der Breggen in the
closing 50 metres, the sixth edition of La
Course by Le Tour was another cliffhanger.
Victory this time went to Marianne Vos, who
overhauled solo escapee Amanda Spratt on
the steep climb to the line in Pau.
While the Dutch rider’s success was
hardly a surprise given her four stage wins in
the recent Giro Rosa, the revelation later the
same day that Tour organiser ASO is setting
up a working group dedicated to developing
women’s cycling was much more so.
“We are setting up a cell to develop
women’s cycling within ASO,” a senior ASO
official told Reuters.
According to the news agency, the aim for
this consultation group will be to plot a way
to establishing what Reuters’ Julien Prétot
described as “a race that would be to
women’s cycling what the Tour is to men’s
cycling”, though the event would not
necessarily be a women’s Tour de France.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme has
long said that there is no prospect of a
women’s Tour running concurrently with the
men’s, and the ASO official highlighted that
this remains the company’s line. “We cannot
have a women’s Tour de France at the same
moment as the men’s Tour because it would
be logistically impossible. The Tour has grown
so much and is so big that having two >Tour organiser aiming for “a race
that would be to women’s cycling
what the Tour is to men’s”
La Course
winners
2019 Marianne Vos
2018 Annemeik van Vleuten
2017 Annemeik van Vleuten
2016 Chloe Hosking
2015 Anna van der Breggen
2014 Marianne VosASO takes first
step towards
women’s
stage race