Running from August 12-18, the third edition of the modern Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift started in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and ends on Sunday on the slopes of Alpe d'Huez in the French Alps.
Demi Vollering headed up a one-two for SD Worx-Protime at last year's second edition of the race, with Lotte Kopecky finishing up in second place. Kopecky is taking a break after a busy Olympic schedule but Vollering is back to try and make it two years in a row, although a crash has made that a harder task.
The first five stages of this year's Tour are now completed, having covered territory across three countries with the Dutch riders dividing the spoils of victory each day in the Netherlands and Belgium, though the arrival in France changed that.
Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) won stage 1 and stage 2 in mass sprint finishes, holding the leader's jersey for two days on home ground. She ceded the lead to Vollering on stage 3, who won in an evening time trial. Then the reigning champion extended her GC lead in a hard-fought sprint against compatriot Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck), who won her first WorldTour road stage. A crash within the final ten kilometres of stage 5 which caught-out Vollering, left her bruised, grazed and handing over yellow to Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) while Hungarian SD Worx-Protime rider Blanka Vas claimed the stage victory.
Cedrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT) followed on stage 6 with a solo stage win after an attack on the descent to Morteau and then on stage 7 Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal) flew solo to victory in the polka dot climbers jersey.
Sunday marks the end game of the race of eight stages over seven days.
The Tour de France Femmes route began with a first foreign Grand Départ in Rotterdam and the sprint days and a time trial in the Netherlands gave way to a hilly Ardennes stage to Liège before the race hit France, and headed towards the big mountain finale. There are two HC mountains on the final stage and nearly 4000m of vertical ascent before yellow is finally decided on the top of the famed Alpe d'Huez.
Niewiadoma, in yellow, and 2023 winner Vollering will of course be two of the key riders to watch on the final stage. but there are others that will be going all out in the chase for the prestigious stage and a top overall spot. They include Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek), Mavi Garcia (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Liane Lippert (Movistar), Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal), Juliette Labous (dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Évita Muzic (FDJ-SUEZ).
Tour de France Femmes in the USA
NBC hold the broadcasting rights for the Tour de France in the USA. The race will be broadcast live on NBC, as well as the network's streaming service, Peacock TV.
Peacock TV offers a seven-day free trial for those who want to try before you buy. A full subscription to the service starts from $4.99 per month.
Tour de France Femmes in Canada
FloBikes will air the Tour de France Femmes in Canada. An annual subscription will set you back $12.99/month.
Tour de France Femmes in the UK
The Tour de France Femmes is live on TV on Eurosport and Discovery+.
A 'standard' subscription to Discovery+, which includes Eurosport's cycling coverage, will set you back £59.99 per year, or, in a special Olympics deal, £3.99 per month to the end of 2024. The package includes year-round cycling streams as well as other live sports, including snooker, tennis, motorsports, and more.
A premium subscription, which includes all that plus TNT Sports (Premier League, Champions League and Europa League football plus rugby, wrestling, UFC, and MotoGP), costs an additional £29.99 per month.
Tour de France Femmes around the World
In Australia, national broadcaster SBS will carry live Tour de France Femmes coverage. In New Zealand, Sky Sports will offer live coverage.
For a local feel and full French-language coverage of the race, head to France TV Around Europe, broadcasters include, VRT/Sporza and RTBF in Belgium, NOS in the Netherlands, TV2 in Norway, DKTV2 in Denmark, and RTVE in Spain.
Be warned, though, that geo-restrictions may apply if you're outside your home country or on holiday during the Tour de France Femmes.
Watch the Tour de France live on any streams
If you are outside of your home region and need to access your live streaming services to watch the action, you may find your access to be geo-restricted.
In this case, a VPN service will come in handy, allowing your computer to pretend it's home and let you log into your streaming accounts to catch all of the racing action.
Our colleagues at TechRadar thoroughly tested several VPN services and came up with a few great recommendations below.
There are a couple other very good options that are safe, reliable and offer good bandwidth for streaming sports. Check out two other top options below - ExpressVPN and the best budget option, Surfshark.
