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Zwift will be the presenting partner of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, with the inaugural edition starting on 24th July 2022 in Paris on the Champs-Élysées.
The four-year partnership will spearhead Zwift’s broader strategy to grow women’s cycling and lay solid foundations, as the race seeks to establish itself as the ‘pinnacle’ of the UCI Women’s World Tour cycling calendar.
The A.S.O and Zwift already have a history together – last year joining forces in July to successfully host the first Virtual Tour de France, a race that allowed the best male and female cyclists in the world to compete. The race was broadcast to over 130 countries with each race receiving equal broadcast time.
“This is a huge moment for professional women’s cycling,” said Anna van der Breggen, professional cyclist for UCI Women’s WorldTeam SD Worx. “The Tour de France is the most famous race in cycling and it’s long been a dream for many of us to compete in a women’s Tour de France. I’m hopeful that the race will help us grow our sport even more by providing us with a media platform to take the excitement of women’s cycling to new audiences.”
Eric Min, CEO and co-founder of Zwift, said: “This is an incredibly important announcement for us as we look to build on our investment in women’s cycling and really help grow and develop the sport. Building on the success of the Virtual Tour de France on Zwift last year, this has been many months in the making and both Zwift and the A.S.O are delighted to make the dream a reality.
“I’ve long been a fan of the attacking style of women’s racing. I really believe the women’s peloton puts on some of the most exciting bike racing to watch and it deserves a much bigger platform to exhibit these talents and skills. I’m proud that we can play a big part in making the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift a reality in 2022. Together we can bring women’s cycling to a larger audience and inspire new generations of female cyclists for years to come.”
Yann le Moënner, general director of Amaury Sport Organisation, added: “We are particularly glad to launch this new women’s race with a partner like Zwift, who have considerably developed cycling around the World thanks to their connected platform. We constructed a Virtual Tour de France together last year which turned out to be an immense success. Our respective teams learned to work together and now target the same objective: to develop women’s cycling by introducing an unmissable event, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.”
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