“We had to fight for women to even have access to the name, ‘Tour de France.’ Because that’s what ASO took away in 1989,” Bertine explains. While other attempts were made to revive the event in coming decades, the official “Tour de France” name was off limits. The Women’s Tour de France was held five more times until race organizers dropped female athletes from the program after 1988. And this was how it was going to be from now on.”

“It didn’t occur to me that it wouldn’t keep going,” says American Marianne Martin, who won the 1984 Women’s Tour de France. Female cyclists competed on the same - albeit shortened - courses as the male riders. Nearly 30 years later in 1984, Tour de France organizers hosted a women’s race in conjunction with the men’s event, marking the first official Women’s Tour de France. That year, 41 athletes competed in a five-stage, one-off race that was contested separately from the men’s competition. If you want to talk about the “first” women’s Tour de France, you’d have to go back to 1955. Progress in women’s cycling isn’t a straight line It’s about making sure history isn’t erased.

Other stories went with ‘inaugural’ which is more accurate - definition: “the first in a series of planned events” - but still misleading. “I think the general public just equates ‘inaugural’ with ‘first,'” she says.įor Bertine, this distinction isn’t just about semantics. “Too many headlines are reading, ‘the first,'” says Bertine.

Former pro cyclist and filmmaker Kathryn Bertine is careful when choosing how to describe the 2022 Tour de France Femmes, which concluded on Sunday with Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten cruising to victory.

The Road Less Taken by Kathryn Bertine