Before today\u2019s riders create the mountain\u2019s next memory, these are the performances that established its women\u2019s racing history.<\/p>\n
![\"divCookes-Mont-Ventoux-masterclass-and-a-Cote-dAzur-classic-\u2013-A-history-of-the-Tour-de-France-Femmes-key-climbsdiv-scaled.avif\"](\"https:\/\/procyclinguk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/divCookes-Mont-Ventoux-masterclass-and-a-Cote-dAzur-classic-\u2013-A-history-of-the-Tour-de-France-Femmes-key-climbsdiv-1024x576.avif\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Nicole Cooke conquers Ventoux on the way to the 2006 Grande Boucle<\/p>\n
The most important women\u2019s performance on Mont Ventoux before today probably belongs to Nicole Cooke.<\/p>\n
Cooke arrived at the 2006 Grande Boucle F\u00e9minine Internationale as one of the outstanding riders of her generation, but becoming the first British winner of the race required something exceptional.<\/p>\n
She delivered it on Stage 4.<\/p>\n
The route crossed Mont Ventoux before continuing towards L\u2019Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. Cooke turned the mountain into the foundation of her overall victory, attacking alone and establishing a huge advantage before continuing her effort beyond the summit.<\/p>\n
It was exactly the sort of performance that defined Nicole Cooke\u2019s career<\/a>: aggressive, physically dominant and delivered during an era when the best women\u2019s racing received only a fraction of the attention it deserved.<\/p>\n Cooke went on to win the Grande Boucle overall, adding another major stage-race success to a career that already included the Giro d\u2019Italia Femminile and would later include Olympic and world road race titles.<\/p>\n The frustrating part is how little her Ventoux ride entered wider cycling mythology.<\/p>\n An equivalent performance in the men\u2019s Tour would have been replayed for years. Women\u2019s cycling in 2006 had nowhere near that visibility, and even one of the defining mountain rides of Cooke\u2019s career was easy for the wider sporting audience to miss.<\/p>\n Twenty years later, the Tour de France Femmes offers an opportunity to put it back into context.<\/p>\n Anna Kiesenhofer wins by almost four minutes in 2016<\/p>\n The next great women\u2019s Ventoux performance produced a name that became considerably more famous five years later.<\/p>\n Anna Kiesenhofer won Stage 3 of the 2016 Tour Cycliste F\u00e9minin International de l\u2019Ard\u00e8che, long before her extraordinary Olympic road race victory in Tokyo.<\/p>\n The Austrian was not yet an established star.<\/p>\n Yet the Ventoux stage already displayed the qualities that would later make her Olympic victory possible: exceptional pacing, independence, an ability to sustain a long effort and little need for conventional tactical protection.<\/p>\n Kiesenhofer bridged across to the breakaway near the bottom of Mont Ventoux before attacking the group herself.<\/p>\n Nobody came close to following.<\/p>\n She reached the summit 3:53 ahead of the next rider, taking the stage victory and moving into the race lead.<\/p>\n That remains one of the most destructive performances seen in a women\u2019s race on Ventoux.<\/p>\n The margin matters because the mountain did not simply create a reduced group or a late tactical selection. Kiesenhofer dismantled the field through sustained climbing power.<\/p>\n Her wider route from that result to one of the biggest shocks in Olympic cycling is covered in our Anna Kiesenhofer profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n With hindsight, the Tokyo victory looks slightly less impossible when the Ventoux result is taken into account. A rider capable of producing that kind of controlled solo effort on one of cycling\u2019s hardest climbs had already demonstrated a highly unusual physical and tactical skill set.<\/p>\n Marta Cavalli wins the first women\u2019s Mont Ventoux D\u00e9nivel\u00e9 Challenge<\/p>\n Mont Ventoux received a dedicated elite women\u2019s one-day race in 2022 when organisers introduced a women\u2019s edition of the Mont Ventoux D\u00e9nivel\u00e9 Challenge.<\/p>\n Marta Cavalli became its first winner.<\/p>\n The timing could hardly have been better.<\/p>\n Cavalli was enjoying the finest period of her career. She had already won Amstel Gold Race and La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne F\u00e9minine during a remarkable Ardennes campaign before arriving in Provence.<\/p>\n That also clears up one point sometimes confused in accounts of women\u2019s racing on Ventoux: La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne F\u00e9minine itself has not climbed Mont Ventoux. Cavalli won Fl\u00e8che Wallonne and then won on Ventoux later in the same 2022 season.<\/p>\n The D\u00e9nivel\u00e9 Challenge covered 100 kilometres and approximately 2,800 metres of climbing before approaching Ventoux from Sault.<\/p>\n That side is longer and generally less severe than the B\u00e9doin approach being used by the Tour de France Femmes today, but it still finishes with the exposed upper slopes above Chalet Reynard.<\/p>\n A reduced group reached the decisive kilometres before Cavalli attacked with around 2.5 kilometres remaining.<\/p>\n Nobody could follow.<\/p>\n She won alone, 41 seconds ahead of Clara Koppenburg and 53 seconds ahead of \u00c9vita Muzic.<\/p>\n Our original report from the day, Cavalli claims inaugural Mont Ventoux D\u00e9nivel\u00e9 Challenge Women\u2019s title<\/a>, captured a performance that became one of the clearest demonstrations of her climbing strength during that 2022 peak.<\/p>\n The event did not develop into a permanent annual fixture, which has made Cavalli\u2019s victory even more distinctive.<\/p>\n She remains the defining winner of the dedicated women\u2019s Ventoux one-day race.<\/p>\n Three performances, three different ways to win on Ventoux<\/p>\n Cooke, Kiesenhofer and Cavalli each used Mont Ventoux differently.<\/p>\n Cooke turned the mountain into the launchpad for a huge solo raid. Her race did not end at the summit, so she had to convert the climbing advantage into a complete stage victory afterwards.<\/p>\n Kiesenhofer simply overwhelmed the opposition. A winning margin approaching four minutes showed how quickly Ventoux can turn a close race into a hierarchy measured in minutes.<\/p>\n Cavalli waited until late. Her 2022 victory demonstrated that Ventoux does not automatically demand an attack from ten kilometres out. If the strongest riders remain together, the upper mountain is still severe enough for one acceleration to decide the race.<\/p>\n Those three examples also provide three possible templates for today.<\/p>\n Vollering may try to produce something closer to Kiesenhofer, turning sustained climbing superiority into an increasingly large gap.<\/p>\n Niewiadoma-Phinney may need the Cooke approach, attacking before the most obvious moment because simply following the strongest rider is unlikely to remove her 1:17 deficit.<\/p>\n Reusser would probably prefer something resembling Cavalli\u2019s race, with the leading contenders remaining together deep into the final kilometres and the Tour still being decided in seconds rather than minutes.<\/p>\n The full tactical equation between the two riders at the top is explored in Reusser vs Vollering: 12 seconds before Mont Ventoux<\/a>.<\/p>\n Why today matters so much<\/p>\n The significance of Stage 7 is not that women have somehow only now become capable of racing Mont Ventoux.<\/p>\n They have been producing exceptional performances there for decades.<\/p>\n What has been missing is visibility.<\/p>\n Cooke\u2019s 2006 ride happened during an era when even winning the leading women\u2019s French stage race could struggle for meaningful international coverage.<\/p>\n Kiesenhofer\u2019s 2016 victory came in the Tour de l\u2019Ard\u00e8che, a race with a long history of producing major climbing performances but nothing approaching the global audience now following the Tour de France Femmes.<\/p>\n Cavalli\u2019s 2022 win came in a newly created one-day event rather than a race with the reach of the Tour.<\/p>\n Today is different.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/procyclinguk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Anna-Kiesenhofer-2016-Mont-Ventoux.avif\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Cavalli](\"https:\/\/procyclinguk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/65760_cavalli2022montventouxdenivele.avif\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Anna](\"https:\/\/procyclinguk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/divIts-sad-to-lose-it-but-I-fought-with-what-I-could-\u2013-Another-Grand-Tour-slips-away-for-Anna-van-der-Breggen-on-final-stage-as-shes-unable-to-match-Vollering-at-Giro-dItalia-Womendiv-scaled.avif\"\/ "\\"Anna")
<\/a>Photo Credit: Getty<\/p>\n![\"Reusser](\"https:\/\/procyclinguk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/20260806TDFFAZ2099-A.S.O.-Gaetan_Flamme-scaled.avif\"\/ "\\"Reusser")
<\/a>Photo Credit: A.S.O.\/Ga\u00ebtan Flamme<\/p>\n