The 2014

La Course by Le Tour de France La Course by Le Tour de France was an elite women's professional road bicycle race held in France. First held in 2014 as a one-day race on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, it has been part of the UCI Women's WorldTour since 2016 as a one or two ...

was the inaugural edition of

, a one-day women's cycle race held in France. The race was run before the 21st stage of the

2014 Tour de France The 2014 Tour de France was the 101st edition of the race, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race included 21 stages, starting in Leeds, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, on 5 July and finishing on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 27 July. The race ...

on 27 July. The race was introduced following criticism by the professional women's peloton and campaigners such as

Kathryn Bertine Kathryn Bertine (born 11 May 1975) is a Saint Kitts and Nevis racing cyclist, author, activist, film-maker and former professional figure skater and professional triathlete. She turned professional in road cycling in 2012 and raced on World Tour ...

regarding the lack of a women's Tour de France.

Route and organisation

The race consisted of 13 laps on the traditional course on the

Champs-Élysées The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is l ...

in Paris, making a distance of . The race was organised by the ASO and rated by the UCI as a 1.1 category race.

Broadcasting

The race was covered in 157 countries by 25 TV broadcasters, 23 of which broadcast the last hour of the race live.

Teams

UCI Women's Teams *

Alé Cipollini UAE Team ADQ is a professional cycling team based in Italy, which competes in elite road bicycle racing events such as the UCI Women's World Tour. In the 2022 season, it had a roster of 15 riders representing eight different nationalities. Tea ...

* Astana BePink Womens Team * Bigla Pro Cycling Team *

Bizkaia–Durango Bizkaia–Durango () is a professional cycling team based in Spain, which competes in elite road bicycle racing events such as the UCI Women's World Tour. Team history 2014 Bizkaia–Durango was active during 2014 in women's road cycling. On ...

Boels–Dolmans SD Worx () is a professional cycling team based in the Netherlands, which competes in elite road bicycle racing events such as the UCI Women's World Tour. Between 2012 and 2020, the team's title sponsors were the Dutch equipment rental company ...

Estado de México–Faren Kuota Estado de México–Faren Kuota () was a professional women's cycling team based in the Mexico, which competed in elite road bicycle racing events such as the UCI Women's Road World Cup. Team history 2014 Riders out On September 18 Lucy Ma ...

Team Hitec Products A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to info ...

Lotto–Belisol Ladies Lotto Dstny Ladies is a women's professional road bicycle racing, cycling cycling team, team based in Belgium, which competes in elite road bicycle racing and track cycling events, such as the UCI Women's World Tour. The team was established in 2 ...

* Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies * Orica–AIS * Poitou–Charentes.Futuroscope.86 * Rabobank–Liv Woman Cycling Team * RusVelo * Specialized–lululemon *

Team Giant–Shimano Team DSM () is a Dutch professional cycling team at UCI WorldTeam level. The team is managed by Iwan Spekenbrink. History The team was founded in 2005 under the name "Shimano-Memory Corp", sponsored by Skil and Shimano, and was based in the ...

UnitedHealthcare UnitedHealth Group Incorporated is an American multinational managed healthcare and insurance company based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. It offers health care products and insurance services. UnitedHealth Group is the world's seventh largest c ...

* Wiggle–Honda Pro Cycling National teams : : :

The race

The race started at 11:45

Central European Summer Time Central European Summer Time (CEST), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central European Time ...

(

UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. This time is used in: As standard time (year-round) ''Principal cities: Cairo, Pretoria, Cape ...

), and was scheduled to last until 13:00. The race saw many attacks. Dutchwomen

Ellen van Dijk Eleonora Maria "Ellen" van Dijk (; born 11 February 1987) is a Dutch professional road racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . Besides road cycling she was also a track cyclist until 2012. Van Dijk is known as a tim ...

(), who attacked multiple times, was the only women who was able to get clear for a few laps with a maximal advantage of over half a minute. Besides of her also

Anna van der Breggen Anna van der Breggen (born 18 April 1990) is a Dutch former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2009 and 2021 for Team Flexpoint, , and . She won the gold medal in the women's road race at the 2016 Summer Olympics ...

Annemiek van Vleuten Annemiek van Vleuten (born 8 October 1982) is a Dutch professional road racing cyclist, who rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . Van Vleuten is a two-time winner of both the road race (2019 and 2022) and the time trial (2017 and 2018) at the UC ...

(both ),

Amy Pieters Amy Pieters (born 1 June 1991) is a Dutch professional road and track cyclist, who is contracted to ride for UCI Women's WorldTeam . She was a member of the Dutch team that finished sixth at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the team pursuit (togeth ...

(Team Giant–Shimano),

Chantal Blaak Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (née Blaak; born 22 October 1989) is a Dutch road racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . In 2017 she became world road race champion in Bergen, Norway. Career Junior career Van den Broek- ...

(),

Alena Amialiusik Alena Vasileŭna Amialiusik ( be, Алена Васільеўна Амялюсік; born 6 February 1989) is a Belarusian road bicycle racer, who rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . She competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the Women's road ra ...

( Astana BePink) and

Rachel Neylan Rachel Neylan (born 9 March 1982) is an Australian professional road cyclist, who rides for UCI Women's Continental Team Cofidis. She won a silver medal at the 2012 World Championships in the women's road race event. She won the inaugural w ...

(Australia National team) attempted to ride away from the peloton, but none were successful. With a few kilometres to go the Mexican national champion

Ana Teresa Casas Ana Teresa Casas Bonilla (born 8 November 1991) is a Mexican racing cyclist, who rides for American amateur team CWA Racing p/b Goldman Sachs ETFs. She competed in the 2013 UCI women's time trial and 2013 UCI women's road race in Florence. Pe ...

(

) crashed out of the race, and with around a kilometre to go another crash in the bunch took down

Lizzie Armitstead Elizabeth Mary Deignan (née Armitstead; born 18 December 1988) is an English professional world champion track and road racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . She was the 2015 World road race champion. Deignan is ...

(Boels–Dolmans) and

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (born 10 February 1992) is a French multi-discipline bicycle racer, who rides for UCI Elite Mountain Bike team BMC MTB Racing in cross-country cycling. and has signed for Ineos Grenadiers for 2023. Ferrand-Prévot has a ...

(Rabo–Liv). The race ended in a bunch sprint with a peloton of about 30 riders.

Marianne Vos Marianne Vos (; born 13 May 1987) is a Dutch multi-discipline cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . After winning a junior European and World Championship in road racing, she continued her success in senior cycling by becomin ...

(Rabo–Liv) won the sprint ahead of

Kirsten Wild Kirsten Carlijn Wild (born 15 October 1982) is a Dutch former professional racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2004 and 2021, for eight professional teams. During her track cycling career, Wild rode at the Summer Olympic Games in 201 ...

(Team Giant–Shimano). Canada's

Leah Kirchmann Leah Kirchmann (born 30 June 1990) is a Canadian racing cyclist, who rides for National Cycling League team Denver Disruptors. She competed in the 2013 UCI women's road race in Florence. At the 2014 Global Relay Canadian Road Championships, hel ...

( Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) finished third in the sprint.

Classifications

Besides the individual time classification (finishing time of the riders) there is a sprint and young rider classification. The Young rider classification exists of the individual time classification with riders born since 1 January 1992. The sprint classification is established by adding up the points obtained in each of the intermediate sprints. There were sprints after each of the first eleven laps, where 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 point(s) were/was awarded to the top five riders.

Prize money

The total prize money of the race was

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

22,500: €17,500 was to be awarded to the best 20 riders of the individual time classification, €3,500 to the first 3 riders in the sprint classification and €2,000 to the first three riders of the young rider classification.

References

External links

* {{La Course by Le Tour de France 2014 in women's road cycling La Course by Le Tour de France 2014 in French sport