Tour de France Femmes broadcast row highlights growing pains of downtrodden event

The catchcry of the Tour de France Femmes by its lead sponsor, Zwift, is pretty simple: Watch the Femmes.

By and large, the viewership data shows that people are doing exactly that.

And why wouldn’t they?

After a riveting seven days of racing so far, capped by Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney’s masterful ascent of the legendary Mont Ventoux, the top three riders in this year’s race are separated by just 39 seconds.

Six different riders have claimed stage victories so far, with the overall race lead changing hands three times since the opening stage.

The 2024 champion, Niewiadoma-Phinney, holds a 15-second advantage over Demi Vollering, the woman she beat two years ago by a measly four seconds. 

This is a race that has had it all.

But fans, as yet, cannot watch the race in its entirety, with just three of the nine stages of this year’s race televised from start to finish.

The lack of comprehensive live coverage is a growing pain that the women’s edition of the Tour de France is hoping to overcome as the fifth edition of its most recent iteration comes to a close in Nice this weekend.

It is something that women’s riders’ union, The Cyclists’ Alliance (TCA) — whose president is Australian former world and Olympic champion Grace Brown — has criticised throughout the race.

“For the biggest race in women’s cycling, partial coverage is no longer enough,” TCA wrote in a social media post.

“Fans will still miss the attacks, the tactics, and the moments that could define the race.” 

Broadcaster Orla Chennaoui, who hosts the coverage for TNT Sports in the UK, was less diplomatic.

“I’m getting really annoyed now. I’m getting really, really pissed off,” she said on an Instagram reel that she titled: Women’s sport done a disservice Editions #4957.

“What the heck? There is so much excitement and interest in the Tour de France Femmes.

“The riders, the race have proven over and over again how dynamic and dramatic this sport is.

“I have never seen my [social media] algorithm so flooded with excitement, with joy, with celebration for this race.

“It’s everywhere, on Instagram, podcasts popping up all over the place, YouTube videos, more written articles that I would ever have imagined when I started covering women’s cycling 10 years ago.

“And we still, despite this, despite how proven the interest is, we cannot get live TV coverage.

“ASO [Amaury Sport Organisation], what are you doing? Why can we not get to watch all stages live?” 

Chennaoui said there was a “huge will” from broadcasters to show the race in its entirety every day in that post, which she acknowledged she may get in trouble for and be asked to delete.

All 21 stages of the men’s Tour de France were broadcast live in their entirety.

On the same day that the third stage of the women’s Tour de France Femme was half-shown, stage one of the men’s Tour de Pologne World Tour race was shown in full, all five hours, four minutes and 11 seconds of what was a flat, 234.2-kilometre race.

The duration of the Tour de France Femmes broadcast has increased to 27 hours and 40 minutes for this year’s race, up five hours and 20 minutes from what was shown live in 2024.

However, TCA noted that France Télévisions data showed a 40 per cent increase in viewership from 18.3 million in 2024 to 25.7 million in 2025.

“The demand is undeniable,” TCA said.

“We are asking for the coverage to catch up.”

That post was put up in the hours before stage three took place, a stage won by Norway’s Sigrid Haugset with an 88km breakaway attack.

However, the move that saw the Norwegian break away from the peloton was completely missed, as the TV cameras had not started rolling.

Additionally, one of the pre-race favourites, Vollering crashed early in the stage, an incident that was, again, missed by the cameras, and could have huge repercussions for the rest of the race. 

“That was disappointing,” former world champion on the track and the road Lizzie Deignan told the For The Love Of Cycling podcast.

“There’s no substitute for footage. You can’t get a feel of the race, of the tension, of the atmosphere.”

According to organisers, this year’s Tour de France Femmes is being broadcast in 190 countries, including by SBS in Australia.

However, SBS and the Tour’s other broadcast partners around the world can only show the footage they are provided with.

France Télévisions handles production and distribution of the broadcast on behalf of the Amaury Sport Organisation [ASO].

The ASO is also responsible for the men’s Tour de France, as well as other major cycling events, including two of cycling’s monument one day races, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Paris-Roubaix.

The organisation was heavily criticised for its coverage of the women’s edition of Paris-Roubaix earlier this year, with less than 90 minutes of the three-and-a-half hour race shown.

“Paris-Roubaix this year, regardless of what they are going to say about TV numbers, was a step backwards,” Chennaoui said in her Instagram reel.

“They’re still doing a disservice to women’s racing.”

As for the Tour de France Femmes, Deignan, who won the 2020 edition of La Course by Le Tour de France, a one-day precursor to the current women’s multi-stage Tour, said the lack of coverage was a return to the “old days” of following professional cycling.

“It was very hard to follow from home,” Deignan said of stage three of this year’s Tour.

“It was like being back in the old days, refreshing news feeds, trying to figure out what’s going on.”

Cycling Weekly spoke to race director Marion Rousse about the criticism, and she said the race was moving towards full broadcast coverage.

“We’re giving serious consideration to broadcasting all the stages in full in the future because the women deserve it,” Rousse told Cycling Weekly.

“It works well in terms of audience figures.

“We’re currently giving it real consideration, which is a step forward. Things are moving in the right direction.”