{"id":726244,"date":"2026-08-03T15:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T15:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/726244\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T15:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T15:56:08","slug":"padded-bras-cause-controversy-at-tour-de-france-femmes-ahead-of-stage-four-time-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/726244\/","title":{"rendered":"Padded bras cause controversy at Tour de France Femmes ahead of stage four time trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Teams at the Tour de France Femmes are concerned riders are wearing oversized bras with extra padding to save watts, WielerFlits reported on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n<p>The extra padding can effectively create a &#8216;chest fairing&#8217; that offers an aero advantage while riding on a time trial bike.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Due to their potential advantage, chest fairings have been prohibited by the UCI. Article 1.3.033 of the UCI\u2019s rulebook prohibits clothing that modifies a rider\u2019s body and bans \u201cnon-essential\u201d equipment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wielerflits.be\/nieuws\/jury-tour-de-france-femmes-opgelet-wielrensters-misbruiken-hun-cupmaat\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">WielerFlits<\/a>, several women\u2019s WorldTour teams are making an urgent appeal to the UCI to enforce the rules ahead of Tuesday\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bikeradar.com\/news\/tour-de-france-femmes-avec-zwift-route-announced\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stage four<\/a> of the Tour de France Femmes, a 21km individual time trial through C\u00f4te d&#8217;Or.<\/p>\n<p>0.78 seconds per kilometre<\/p>\n<p>Although 21km is not a long distance, padding could still have an impact on the result of the race.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A 2024 study published in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0167610524000722#sec7https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0167610524000722#sec7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics<\/a> found the largest chest fairing gives a 3.6% drag reduction and at least 0.78 seconds per kilometre.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It said the time gained through the use of a chest fairing \u201ccan decide who wins or loses a time trial\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The same study said chest fairings have been used in competition, including the 2023 Tour de France individual time trial and 2023 Glasgow Road World Championships ITT.<\/p>\n<p>WielerFlits reported that padded chests have been seen at other women\u2019s races, including the 2024 Paris Olympics time trial and Giro d\u2019Italia Women.<\/p>\n<p>Front pockets banned<\/p>\n<p>The UCI is yet to comment on chest fairings at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bikeradar.com\/events\/tour-de-france-femmes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tour de France Femmes<\/a>. But it recently adjusted its rules to prohibit jerseys with front pockets in light of their potential aerodynamic benefit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the beginning of 2026, the UCI observed that several riders were wearing jerseys featuring front internal pockets containing nutritional products that were generally not consumed because they were extremely difficult \u2013 or even impossible in race conditions \u2013 to access. These pockets result in significant alterations to the riders\u2019 body shape,\u201d it said in a statement released in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven the established link between aerodynamic gains, increased speed and the severity of accidents, and considering that the practice also raises issues of sporting fairness, the UCI has decided that jersey pockets must be located exclusively on the rear of the garment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>BikeRadar has contacted the UCI for comment on chest fairings at the Tour de France Femmes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More on the Tour de France Femmes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teams at the Tour de France Femmes are concerned riders are wearing oversized bras with extra padding to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-726244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}