Tour de France Femmes - Kathrin Hammes, Krista Doebel-Hickok & Letizia Borghesi

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Photo: Twila Muzzi

It’s finally time for the women to take on the Tour de France. It’s a huge deal that the Tour is finally back on the calendar for the women, and as I wasn’t able to be on-race, I thought what better way to get the inside word than talking to some of the participants from this year’s edition.

On the eve of the race, I was lucky enough to talk to three of the women competing for EF Education Tibco SBV, Kathrin Hammes from Germany, Krista Doebel-Hickok from the US, and the team’s Italian rider Letizia Borghesi.

I think the growth of racing on the women’s side of the sport is fantastic. It’s no secret that women’s cycling is playing catch up with the men’s in terms of the budgets and races. I spoke to Kathrin, Krista and Letizia about how they look back at the pioneering women who came before them and also how it feels to now be in a position to be a part of the growth of women’s professional cycling.

All three of them have interesting stories of how they came to the sport, and talking to them opened my eyes to the fact that until very recently female athletes didn’t really consider that there was a career to be made in cycling. I very much got the sense that passion is more than the profession and that is perhaps an interesting distinction that explains a few differences between the men’s and women’s pelotons.

Of course, we also delved a little deeper into the nuts and bolts of the Tour de France Femmes itself and along with looking at the details of the course, we also spoke about what the team is hoping for from the eight days of racing across France.

I found it a really insightful chat, and I wish all the women racing the best of luck for the Tour.

Cheers,

Mitch

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Show Notes

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This episode is brought to you by Rapha, makers of the world’s finest cycling clothing & accessories and the worlds largest cycling club, RCC. Find out more about Rapha: their kit, their club, their events and awesome clubhouses at rapha.cc.

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