The international women’s Tour of the Pyrenees turned into a fiasco this weekend. After a sling of the riders linked to insufficient safety conditions according to them, the event stopped this Sunday even before the start of the third and last stage.
A very bad publicity for women’s cycling, at a time when it seeks to become more professional and gain media coverage. While this weekend was held – a month and a half before the Tour de France women 2023 (July 23-30) – the international women’s Tour of the Pyrenees, an ambitious event on paper with 138 riders at the start, and 24 teams including 6 World Tour, this one… turned into a fiasco. And did not even go to the end of its third and last stage. All against a background of conflict between the participants and the organization, about the security conditions.
Quite disturbing images
It all started on Friday, during the 1st stage between Argelès and Lourdes. As shown by images relayed on social networks, the runners sometimes had to slalom between vehicles (and even pedestrians) in the final, the route not having been closed to traffic upstream. This could have raised fears of serious incidents, and which somewhat irritated part of the peloton.
After discussions with the organizers, and especially new scares with motorcycles, the riders decided on Saturday – in protest – to stop in the middle of the race, to neutralize part of the second stage on the road to Hautacam. The French champion, Audrey Cordon-Ragot, also spoke in front of the rest of the participants.
It was on Saturday evening that the situation escalated. At the end of the first two stages deemed chaotic, a crisis meeting was organized. To make matters worse. This Sunday morning, before the start of the third stage between Nay and Bosdarros, several teams, like the powerful Jumbo-Visma, announced their withdrawal, again citing insufficient security, and the runners’ union is on the front line. All this so that in the middle of the morning, the UCI announces the cancellation of the stage in question, and therefore the premature end of the Tour de Pyrénées.
The organization denounces the “whims of spoiled children”
If this decision was apparently supported by a good part of the runners, the organization however expressed a very different point of view, expressing its dissatisfaction. “What happens is that the girls have demands that are not in line with their level. They imagine that they are on the Tour de France and that all the roads must be closed, that everything must be locked. But in France, we can’t do that”, thus dropped with the New Republic of the Pyrenees race director Pascal Baudron, before confirmation of the cancellation. The latter even speaking… of “whims of spoiled children”.
“The girls do not realize the visibility offered by television broadcasting and the future of women’s cycling, where races are being canceled,” lamented co-director Elisabeth Chevanne-Brachet. (…) The UCI’s decision was to prefer to hear ten athletes who reported the facts to CPA Women, the athletes’ union, and asked to cancel the race.
Note that the general classification was frozen at the finish of the second stage in Hautacam. It was therefore the Italian Marta Cavalli of the FDJ, victorious on Saturday in the Hautes-Pyrénées, who was declared the winner.