The Tour de France Femmes 2024 features a “brutal” ascent of the historic Alpe d’Huez climb when the revived race returns for its third edition on 12-18 August.
The ascent, famed for its 21 switchback bends and rising to just over 1,800m, has hosted some of the most iconic Tour battles in the men’s race’s history and marks the finish line of this year’s women’s race.
“We have the profile for this [stage] on VeloViewer and I didn’t want to highlight it,” said British champion Pfeiffer Georgi, who will be on the start line again with her DSM-Firmenich PostNL team having competed in both previous editions.
“The first climb [of the stage, over the Col du Glandon] is 20km at 7% and then the second [to Alpe d’Huez] is 13km at 8% and I thought ‘that’s brutal’.”
Taking place slightly later in the year because of the Olympic Games in Paris, the race remains at eight stages although is held over seven days – with stages two and three held back-to-back on the same day.
For the first time it starts abroad, with the grand depart in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, before moving through Belgium and then into France, mixing flat stages with a time trial, rolling classics style stages, and two big days in the Alps to finish.
Georgi takes BBC Sport through all eight stages and what we can expect from the race.