Stage 8 of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will be the toughest ever in the history of the event. It features not one but two ‘hors category’ climbs, the Glandon (19.7km at 7.2%) and the Alpe d'Huez (13.8km at 8.1%).
Before facing those two ‘giants’ of the Tour, the remaining members of the peloton will have to climb the Tamié (9.5km at 4%), a 2nd category climb which could serve as a springboard for serious attacks. Next there will be around 40 km of flat terrain to reach Sainte-Marie-de-Cuines (km 77.7).
We will then be at the foot of Glandon, the start of a brutal finale where the best climbers will naturally pull away. Given the small GC gaps and the difficulty of this final stage, the overall ranking after seven stages could be seriously disrupted by the time the race reaches the top of Alpe d'Huez, which is to be climbed for the first time in the history of the event.
The GC top 10 are all within 1'27" of each other, whilst the top 20 are within 4'10", which gives plenty of riders the hope of finishing at the business end of the ranking. Last year, Demi Vollering managed to take 1'58" on Kasia Niewiadoma on the Tourmalet. The gap of 1'15" between the Yellow Jersey and the 2023 Tour winner is therefore not unbreachable on paper.
But the Dutchwoman, 8th overall, does not represent the only danger for the Pole, who is only 27" ahead of the wearer of the white jersey Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceunck), then respectively 37" and 1'01" ahead of Cedrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit WNT-Pro) and Juliette Labous (dsm-firmenich PostNL), who dream of offering France its first podium since the rebirth of the event in 2022.
Whilst Marianne Vos (Team Visma | Lease a Bike) only has to finish before the cut-off time to win the green jersey, suspense remains in the battle for the polka dot jersey, although the heroine of Grand-Bornand, Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal Team), has a 16-point margin over Pieterse in the QOM competition.
