‘Extending it to two weeks would be a great step’ – Host nation’s lone Tour de France Femmes success story Cédrine Kerbaol keen on lengthening race

Since the Tour de France Femmes was run for the first time back in 2022, the race has only grown bigger and better, improving and growing alongside the women’s peloton. That first edition saw eight days of racing between Paris and La Super Planche des Belles Filles.

This year’s race, the toughest edition yet, ran for nine days between Lausanne and Nice, was marked by a record 18,795 metres of climbing, with the brutal summit finish atop Mont Ventoux the highlight. On the side of the road, crowds are bigger year-on-year, as are viewing figures, and the same goes for the press pack following the race on the ground.

Cédrine Kerbaol, who was the home nation’s standout performer at the Tour this summer, said that she would be “very happy” to tackle a longer Tour in future, even as long as the three-week-long Grand Tours the men’s peloton race.

“My teammates don’t share that opinion. And I really need them in every race I enter,” the EF Education-Oatly racer told French television after finishing in Nice.

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“So, I think it’s better to take it one step at a time. Extending it to two weeks would be a great step forward for the coming years.”

Ahead of the race, Tour director Marion Rousse told Cycling Weekly how proud she was of the progress made during the first five editions, but said that the ongoing growth of the race wouldn’t be quite so rapid.

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“In the first edition, I went to speak to the wider public, and they struggled to name a single rider. Now I’m really happy because everyone knows the riders. We’ve really overcome an obstacle.

“You’ve really got to put the race in its context: barely five years before, there were hardly any riders in the peloton who were paid. That’s very recent.

“Yes, it’s evolving quickly, but we’re not at the same stature as the men’s peloton yet. We also shouldn’t put any barriers in our way, and one day there might be more stages, but we won’t go from nine days to 21 overnight. It will need to be done little by little.”

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Kerbaol’s second place in Tournon-sur-Rhône on stage 6 was the best stage result achieved by a French rider (Image credit: Getty Images)

This year’s Tour was a tough watch for home fans, with France having gone from feast to famine in the space of a calendar year. Last summer, the nation hailed its first Tour winner for decades as Pauline Ferrand-Prévot dominated the final weekend en route to the yellow jersey, while Breton breakthrough hero Maëva Squiban shone as she broke away to win two stages.

This time around, French squad FDJ United-SUEZ led the way with Demi Vollering’s GC victory, though there were few standout results from French racers. Kerbaol, who equalled her career best of sixth overall in Nice, took the limelight. While the French stage win drought continued from the men’s Tour, she scored the nation’s standout stage result here with a second place on the road to Belleville-en-Beaujolais.

The 25-year-old Breton, who won a stage and finished sixth two years ago, headed to her EF Education-Oatly team bus after crossing the line to end her race, bursting into tears in the arms of her teammates, before making her way across the beach and cooling off with a spontaneous dip in the sea. Afterwards, she told L’Equipe just how happy she was about her race.

“It’s incomparable to previous years. Last year, Marlen and Van der Breggen weren’t there, and the year before, other top riders were missing, too. This year, all the best riders in the world were here, so it definitely means it carries a higher value. I can only take away positives from the race,” she said.

“We knew it was going to be tough from start to finish. I would’ve loved to go on the attack today, but there was no point in trying anything too far from the finish. Isabella Holmgren made the move I wanted to and buried herself a long way out. We averaged over 200 watts, so it was simply impossible to break away. We did what we could.”

Kerbaol may have been France’s best GC performer this year, though she was some way adrift of Demi Vollering’s first place, finishing 6:41 down. She was closer to the podium, however, at just 1:22 off Elisa Longo Borghini’s third spot.

There’s reason for her to look upwards and have hope for higher placings in future, then.

“It’s still a big step to climb to challenge those girls at the front. With my teammates, the harmony was just as good off the bike as on it. We also showed other teams that they can be afraid of us in the future. Next year, we’ll come back stronger.”

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