Watch Breakaway Femmes premiere July 21 at 8.20pm, and subsequently on SBS On Demand. Or you could tune into the current version of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift live on SBS, watch all the action on the SBS On Demand Hub.
For six glorious years during a special age of cycling… the 1980s, the Tour de France held a women’s race alongside the men’s race. These women raced across the same cobblestones, over the same mountains, and in front of the same throng of adoring crowds as the men.
During these halcyon years, the women’s Tour de France delivered drama in spades. The brutal riding tactics of the Dutch women, the surprising underdog victory of all-American girl Marianne Martin, the great rivalry between “The Flying Mum”, Italian Maria Canins and the abrasive Frenchwoman Jeannie Longo, whose long career was plagued by drug accusations, the arrival of the Chinese team who had to prove themselves in the peloton, and the heroic deeds of Canadian Kelly-Ann Way who overcame Olympic disappointment and powered her way to a surprising stage win.
None of this came easily. To even reach the starting line, the women had to overcome a mountain of obstacles. Unlike their male counterparts, the women were not salaried riders.
They had to take time off work, cover their own travel costs, and provide their own bikes, equipment and clothing.
The French public, accustomed to seeing women only as “podium girls”, were sceptical of this female foray into France’s most sacred institution. The press was dismissive, saying that the women had no business being there and predicting that not a single woman would make it to the Champs Élysées, and Tour de France legends Laurent Fignon and Jacques Anquetil made it clear how they felt about women intruding into their bastion of manhood.
I like women, but I prefer to see them doing something else.Laurent Fignon via The Guardian, 1984
Nevertheless, the inaugural women’s Tour de France was a success. The women won over the dubious public with their grit and charm and gained the grudging admiration of the press.
However, after the novelty value wore off, the media coverage dwindled. The cost of staging the women’s race grew harder to justify. Logistical problems grew, as the press corps and Tour support vehicles often became trapped behind the “Bloody women” and were unable to reach the finish line ahead of the men’s race.
Ultimately, the Tour de France Féminin was deemed too problematic by the organisers and was cancelled in 1989. It was replaced by a succession of smaller, lesser races, held at a different time of year, that never came close to replicating the scale of the race in the 1980s.
More than three decades on, the pioneering women who took part in the Tour de France Féminin are older... and perhaps wiser. The women look back on their time on the Tour. They recall the highs and lows of the race, the hilarious moments and the painful memories, and the bonds of sisterhood that were formed, occasionally fractured, but which endured against all the odds.
And there is finally something new to celebrate… It has taken more than thirty years, but finally women’s racing has clawed its way back to the Tour de France. As the world’s elite female cyclists prepare to ride the Tour de France, the women of the 1980s return to Paris one more time to see a new generation of women take on the greatest race in the world.
The place to watch the fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is right here on the SBS On Demand Hub.
