Tour de France Femmes 2022 – Riders criticise longest stage of race after ‘boring’ and ‘dangerous’ stage

Several Tour de France Femmes riders have criticised the length of the fifth stage, describing it as “boring” and “dangerous”.

The stage from Bar-le-Duc to Saint-Die-des-Vovsges was 175.6km, the longest race day for the women’s peloton both of the Tour and since the creation of the Women’s World Tour in 2016.

UCI regulations allow for a maximum race length of 160km for both one day races and individual, forcing race organisers ASO to apply for an exemption.

A number of riders subsequently criticised the decision to elongate their race day beyond a typical distance, suggesting it was not entertaining for them or viewers.

“Boring,” Canyon-SRAM’s Kasia Niewiadoma commented on the day’s racing. “Boring, but I’m happy that we all stayed safe on the bike.

“The final was fun but I wish the stage was shorter and we could do fun things more that just the final.

“To be honest there’s nothing in my eyes good in long stages because they’re not exciting to watch and they are boring for us.

“Also they are dangerous, people lose their concentration because after riding three or four hours very easy it’s hard to get the sharpness in your head so because of that we see quite a lot of unnecessary crashes.”

Six of the seven other stages are around 130km in length, a more typical race distance for the women’s peloton.

One-day classics do sometimes exceed 150km in length, but Niewiadoma feels that shorter, more intense races are better.

“It’s not like we race 80km, we still race 130 for example which is very dynamic [and] exciting. I feel like that’s more than enough.

“But we go slow! The longer the slower, I’ve never done more than 140km of full action, maybe at Strade Bianche, but in a stage race whenever a stage is long everyone takes it as a recovery day.”

Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (SDWorx) agreed with Niewiadoma.

The Dutchwoman suffered a significant wound to her arm during Stage 5, battling through to the finish safely among the peloton having been patched up.

“Today was just a boring race, of course it makes you tired but when you have an aggressive race of three hours then it makes you even more tired,” the 2017 world champion explained.

“It makes no sense to make it longer in my opinion. Yesterday was around 130 and the day before as well, I think that’s the perfect distance to race aggressive.

“Maybe for the classics it’s fine, but you see today it was a boring race and that happens when you make it longer. It’s the same for the men.”

Van den Broek-Blaak will start Stage 6, but three riders were marked DNS ahead of the stage to Rosheim: Marjolein van’t Geloof (Le Col-Wahoo), Marta Lach (Ceratizit-WNT) and Eleonora Camilla Gasparrini (Valcar).

– – –