For every stage of the 2024 Tour de France – men’s and women’s – José Been is bringing you stories about the history, castles, geology, culture, food, and people around the race. A bit of couleur locale while you enjoy lush fields of sunflowers, beautiful mountains, and pretty little villages, oh, and the bike race too.
It’s the final day of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift but we have a major mountain-top finish to enjoy. It’s the Alpe d’Huez! As a Dutch person I grew up with this mountain being the “Dutch mountain”. In the history of the men’s race many Dutch riders won on this famous climb. It’s also the location of one of the biggest annual cancer research fundraisers called Alpe d’Huzes where some people even climb the mountain six times in a day to raise money. “Zes” means “six” in Dutch.
It’s a hugely emotional day because people who have cancer, people who survived cancer, and people who lost someone come together to create awareness and raise money because more research means that more treatments can be offered. The goal is to ultimately cure cancer. As someone who had breast cancer 15 years ago it’s extra emotional to see people ride, walk, or run up the mountain surrounded by thousands of supporters.
There will be many Dutch supporters out there today as well. I can guarantee you that. It’s the first time the climb features in this incarnation of the women’s Tour de France Femmes but back in 1992 it was already part of one of its predecessors. That was at a time when Leontien van Moorsel and Jeannie Longo went head-to-head in the major races.
The first race cycling race around France for women was in 1955 and was won by Millie Robinson, from the Isle of Man. In the 1980s there was a cycling tour around France organized by the ASO. In 1989 it was deemed economically unprofitable and therefore cancelled. As Van Moorsel reflected in June of this year: “In those years women’s cycling was just an afterthought. There was maybe a snippet in the newspaper but there was no TV coverage.”
The 1989 edition was Van Moorsel’s first Tour de France. She was 19. “I finished 31st, Jeannie Longo was there, and I wanted to be like her,” she told letourfemmes.fr earlier this year. “Of course, I was gutted when the Tour got cancelled the very next year.
“Back in 1989, it felt like the women were just a warm-up act before the men came onto the stage, which was far from ideal. After that, we got the attention we deserved: a real Tour for women,” Van Moorsel continued. She refers to the 1992 Tour Cycliste Féminin. There was also another women’s stage race in France in those years called Tour de la CEE féminin to make matters more confusing.
After this short, and therefore incomplete history of the women’s race around France, it’s back to the Alpe d’Huez. In 1992 Van Moorsel was the reigning world champion. Jeannie Longo, 11 years her senior, was the French favorite. Both women had already been very successful.
Alpe d’Huez came on the final stage that year. Van Moorsel had nine seconds in the general classification over Longo. The final kilometers of the climb looked like a long track sprint, including the sur place (track stand). This happened no less than four times when Longo wanted to force the lead upon Van Moorsel. The Dutch rider didn’t take the bait and kept her legs still. In the end it was Longo who opened the sprint and Van Moorsel who passed her in the final meters to win the race.
Longo was furious at the passive attitude of the world champion, but Van Moorsel just stuck to the plan she and her team manager had made. If only we could have seen that …
Today we will see the final battles on the slopes of the Alpe d’Huez to conclude this year’s Tour de France Femmes. It also concludes my last blog entry. Thanks for reading these and thanks for the lovely reactions. You can support these articles by becoming an Escape Collective member. Hopefully I will be back with 28 new stories in 2025. Merci et à bientôt.
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