As a child, Vos watched the Tour de France every summer and camped with her family along the route for a full three weeks, shouting encouragement as the riders sped down flat roads, cycled up winding mountain passes and flew down steep slopes. There Vos, Olympic gold medalist and winner of many world championships, fell in love with cycling. But the race was for men only, so it was never her goal to win it. But over time, as she became one of the most successful female cyclists in history, it dawned on her: Why should men get all the media attention, fan admiration and money that only the Tour de France can? to bring; That realization was partly how the Tour de France Femmes was revived this week after a 33-year absence. Vos was a major force in lobbying to bring back the women’s fight, which was held once in 1955, then again from 1984 to 1989, before disappearing again for a generation. It wasn’t until Sunday, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and under a blistering summer sun, that the women – 144 racers from 24 teams – got back on their bikes for a race related to the Tour, the most famous race in cycling. “Of course, you can say maybe it took a long time, but yeah, but I’m happy to be here,” said Vos, who kept the yellow jersey on Tuesday after finishing second on Stage 3. It was her second runner-up finish in three days. “I think the time is right.” For some cyclists and women’s rights advocates like Vos, the moment has been right for at least a decade. In 2013, Vos and three other cyclists — American Kathryn Bertine, a women’s cycling advocate from Bronxville, New York; British former time trial champion Emma Pooley; and four-time Ironman champion Chrissie Wellington — were so sure the time was right for a women’s tour that they formed a group called Le Tour Entier (French for The Whole Tour) to rally public support for the conducting one. Their efforts to convince the Amaury Sport Organisation, or ASO — the company that runs the Tour — succeeded, but only to a point. ASO agreed to host a race in 2014 that was clearly not The Whole Tour, considering the first edition of the race was about 2 percent as big as the men’s race. The event, called La Course by Le Tour de France, was a one-day circuit race held on the final day of the men’s tour, in Paris. Vos won that day and then won again in 2019. The ASO was supposed to add three to five match days to that one-day event until the women’s event reached parity with the men’s 21-day event, Bertine said in a phone interview Monday, but that never happened. La Course was replaced altogether this year by the eight-day Tour de France Femmes — longer than La Course, but not as long as the men’s Tour. “I think the social pressure put on ASO was the reason they finally, after eight years, decided to finally step up the women’s race,” said Bertine, who made a documentary called “Half the Road” that discussed inequalities of the sexes in cycling. . “My biggest fear is that this race will be eight days for another eight years because it’s scary to see ASO’s track record in it. They are dinosaurs that resisted this for a long, long time.” Bertine lamented that women’s cycling went into decline shortly after the women’s tour was organized in 1984. Six women’s teams raced this Tour at the same time as the men, with the women starting 35 to 45 miles ahead each day. They rode 18 of the 21 stages, including the daunting Alpe d’Huez climb, and all but one of the women finished. Marianne Martin, of Boulder, Colo., became the first American – woman or man – to win the Tour de France. On Sunday in Paris, wearing a sleeveless yellow dress in the same color as the Tour leader’s jersey, Martin, 64, was at the start of the Women’s Tour to cheer on female runners. He recalled walking past thousands of fans at the 1984 Tour, just hours before the men’s race rolled into town, and feeling the thrill the men had experienced every year since the race began in 1903. People shouting. Flags are waving. The bells are ringing. He had never seen anything like it. On Sunday, the atmosphere felt the same — and that was exciting, he said. One night on that 1984 tour, she went to a men’s group for dinner and noticed that their hotel was much nicer and their food was much better than the women’s. However, she was indifferent. “I didn’t care because we were in the Tour de France and I got a massage every day and we were fed and we had to race our bikes every day in France,” Martin said. “I had no expectations for more.” He recalled winning about $1,000 and a trophy. The men’s winner, France’s Laurent Fignon, won more than $100,000. This year, there is also a big difference between the men’s and women’s prize money. The women will receive approximately $250,000, with the overall winner receiving approximately $50,000. On the men’s side, the purse was more than $2 million, with Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard earning more than $500,000 to finish first. There is still a long way for women to achieve equality in sport. The international cycling federation, for example, sets how far they can ride in a day, a distance that is much less than the men’s maximum. (In another example, the women’s Olympic road course is 60 miles shorter than the men’s.) Men’s WorldTour minimum wage is higher than women’s, and budgets for women’s teams are often paltry compared to men’s. Linda Jackson, owner of the EF Education-TIBCO-SVB women’s cycling team, said the road to the top of the sport — and to equality — will take time and a calculated plan for success, especially when you’re building something sustainable. Jackson, a former investment banker, started her team in 2004 with the goal of someday competing in Europe. Her team is participating this year in the women’s WorldTour and also in the Tour de France Femmes. There are many signs that the sport is on the rise for women, she said, including more races, more television coverage and higher minimum wages that help riders focus solely on their training (which means a higher level of competition). It was also significant that Zwift, a fitness technology company, signed a four-year contract as a stage sponsor of the Tour de France. In 2020, the company partnered with ASO to host a virtual Tour de France during the pandemic, and viewership numbers for the women’s events were so high that Zwift eventually committed to helping ASO bring the women’s tour back to life. “ASO, specifically, isn’t doing this because, ‘Equality for women, wow, wouldn’t that be nice?’ Jackson said. “They do it because they see the growing momentum in the sport.” He added: “They’re not going to do a women’s tour in 20 years if they lose money for three to four years. ASO should be broken at least.” Media exposure is the most important element in the fight’s success, Jackson said, and with 2 1/2 hours of live TV coverage a day on this women’s tour, “this one fight has the potential to change the sport us forever”. Kathrin Hammes, who rides for Jackson’s team, said: “People pay attention when they hear about the Tour de France. It’s the one fight everyone knows.” Many of the women competing in the Tour said an eight-day event was a good start, but that they are already hoping for more. Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten, favourite, said she was ready for a three-week challenge, just like the ordeal the men endure. She added that she would be “super excited” for an epic climb like the one on Alpe d’Huez because it would be another milestone for women’s cycling. For now, the runners are several days away from reaching the final stages, which will be held in the Vosges Mountains and will end with a grueling climb of La Super Planche des Belles Filles, a peak that is sometimes included in the men’s tour. And Vos – who has done just about everything there is to do in cycling – has a few days before she can look back and appreciate her roles as a runner and as an advocate in helping make the whole event happen. Maybe she’ll remember young girls cheering her name as they lined the course and watched the peloton take off on Stage 2. Or the group of men from a Brie-producing society wearing cream yellow cloaks and matching flat-top hats who asked her for a selfie. But early in the race, Vos said she couldn’t think about anything but the many miles ahead. “I’m so grateful for everyone who put their energy into making this race happen,” he said. “But I’m also focused on the games now. I’ll let it sink in and think about what happened maybe at the end, after the season or even in a couple of years.” As he left, he said, “All I know now is that the Tour de France is bigger than sport.”
