Donnons des elles au vélo J-1

The project was born in July 2015 under the name "Donnons des Elle au Tour" (fr. - "Let the girls on the Tour"). As part of the project, a team of female amateurs travels all stages of the Tour de France route one day before the official race, accompanied by a peloton from amateur enthusiasts and professional athletes.

Since 1984, the Tour de France women's cycling race has been held annually at the same time as the men's cycling race. In 1992, it was replaced by the Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale, a competition with fewer stages (5-7), which lasted until 2009 and was canceled due to organizational problems and lack of interest in the media. Today, women's cycling is intense develops, many grand tours have a female version (for example, Giro Rosa in Italy), but the situation in France is far from ideal, in particular according to the French Cycling Federation (FFC), among the owners of sports licenses today there are no more than 10% of women.

The idea of ​​the project was born from the documentary film “La belle échappée” ^[2] Eric Fottorino, in the center of the plot of which a group of teenagers from different social layers travels on the Tour de France one day before the race. The action took place for the first time in July 2015, when three cyclists, led by Claire Flora, traveled the route in order to draw attention to women's cycling at a time when the attention of all sports media was riveted to Tours.

The French Cycling Federation has been the main partner of the project since 2015, together with the official sponsor Francaise de Jeux FDJ since 2016.

Initially, the team consisted of three athletes (Claire Floore ^[3] , Marie Istil and Marion Betiso), and in 2015 earned recognition by the sports community as an example of motivation and perseverance in promoting women's cycling.

In 2016, the composition increased to seven participants from different countries of Europe (Claire Flora, Marie Istil, Tatyana Kalacheva, Alexia Buzzy, Amandin Martan, Julie Cotils, Gael Cassia). In 2017, the composition included eleven participants (Claire Flora, Alexia Buzzy, Julie Cotils, Tatyana Kalacheva, Marine Tiebo, Laura Devitt, Barbara Fonseca, Solen Le Duaron, Pilar Vidal, Anna Barrero, Celine Harrand). The patron was the French cyclist Pauline Ferrand-Prevost ^[4]

The original name “Donnons des elle au Tour” was changed to “Donnons des elle au vélo J-1” in 2016 due to the inability to use the word “Tour”. In 2017, the name finally established itself as "Donnons des elles au vélo J-1."

The first season of the project was almost anonymous, with communication through social networks and some coverage in the regional press. In 2016, the action attracted the attention of major media outlets, in which the first report in the transfer of Cycling Club Gerard Holtz to France Télévisions in prime time took place.

In 2017, daily reports were published about the project ^[5] on France Télévisions during the Tour de France live broadcast, and BKE produced a 30-minute documentary called Les Elles du vélo ^[6] , presented on August 5, 2017 at TV channel France 3. In total, the project audience was more than 650,000 viewers, and the team received wide support ^[7] from amateur athletes and professional racers.

A number of professional athletes expressed their support for the project, including Olympic champions (Julie Bresset, Audrey Cordon-Ragot, Bescond Anais ^[8] , Pier-Luc Périchon, Wiggle High 5, FDJ and FDJ New Aquitain Futuroscope teams). In 2018, the fourth season is planned, a team of 13 amateurs from different countries will again go the Tour de France one day before the race, in order to draw more attention to women's cycling and return the women's peloton to the Grand Tours.

Donnons des elles au velo official project site