Tour de France Femmes 2025 - Stage 1: Lichtenberg's preview: For women with an extra kick

Stage 1 | Saturday, 26 July 2025 | Vannes - Plumelec | 78.8 kilometres | 926 vertical metres

Claudia Lichtenberg's assessment of the 1st stage

It starts with an extremely short race - the first stage is only 79 kilometres long. I think the reason for this is that the joint organisers, A.S.O., don't want the men's and women's Tour to block each other in the finale during television coverage. The penultimate stage of the men's race is running today. A short start is certainly not so bad. This means that the gaps in the classification won't be infinitely large - the peloton will remain fairly compact. But when the Côte de Cadoudal is ridden three times on the final laps, the riders won't be giving each other anything away. You'll have to buckle up!

This stage is definitely something for punchy racers like world champion Lotte Kopecky. I don't know whether the route profile at the end is too difficult for real sprinters. Team SD Worx - Protime would probably have to decide whether to ride for a "punchy" type like Kopecky or for sprinter Wiebes. The climbers will certainly also do well due to the metres in altitude - but the current power density could bring a versatile sprinter like Wiebes in the slipstream of the peloton towards the finish. In any case, you need that extra kick in the leg to be able to win in Plumelec.

>> The route of the Tour de France Femmes 2025 - all stages at a glance

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Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of stage 1 of the Tour de France Femmes 2025

• Neutral start: 17:25, sharp start 17:40
• Estimated arrival time: between 19:27 and 19:38
• TV broadcast: ARD 17:20-19:35, Eurosport 1 17:00-20:00
• Live stream: sportschau.de, Discovery Plus (fee required)

TOUR expert Claudia Lichtenberg

She was one of the best tour specialists in German cycling - at a time when there was no Tour de France for women. Claudia Lichtenberg won the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de l'Aude in 2009 under her maiden name Häusler, the toughest stage races in women's cycling at the time. Alongside her job as a racing cyclist, she completed a degree in mechanical engineering. Today, the 39-year-old from Munich works as an engineer and, together with her husband Christian, comments on women's races on the Discovery+/Eurosport platforms.