The “pride” of Marion Rousse, director of the Tour de France Femmes: “I struggled so much on my bike”

Marion Rousse : It was fabulous. I was in the best place, in the car, just behind Demi Vollering who was trying to turn the Tour around. When she attacks a little more than 50 kilometers from the finish of the last stage, we say to ourselves that it's over. But Niewiadoma is regaining strength and, above all, is supported by a few competitors. Then Vollering cracks a little in Alpe d'Huez… and it comes down to just four seconds.

Amazing. I still get chills when I talk about it. I was with Christian [Prudhomme] that day. We changed our minds every two minutes about the identity of the winner. It was fantastic. I don't remember having experienced such an intense moment in my entire career.

Before that, there was the 5th stage and Lorena Wiebes, in particular, who does not wait for Demi Vollering after her fall. Don't we owe this last epic act, in part, to a malfunction at SD Worx?

Vollering will perhaps win it back under its new colors, with FDJ-Suez…

M. R. : Now it's good, we're talking about the champions. Because the first year, I was asked if it was going to work, if it was coherent, if women's cycling was ready, etc. My job was to say, “This is going to be great,” and then the champions did the job themselves. I struggled so much on my bike, I saw that I couldn't make a living from it, I had to stop my career early… contribute to this growth, through this “work of passion” as director of the Tour de France Femmes with Zwift and by getting the right message across to the media, it’s a source of pride.

A stage of the Tour de France Women ended at Markstein in 2022. It was the same a year later during the men's event. How important is it for you to establish a link between the two emanations of the Tour de France?

M. R. : We like to build bridges, evolve hand in hand. It's nice to write a story that extends from one race to the next. It's a bit as if the Tour de France was our big brother. We care about these winks, which sometimes have a historical dimension. If we chose to leave from the Netherlands in 2024, it is partly because the first major start of the men's Tour de France to be held abroad was already in the Netherlands (in 1954, editor’s note).

A final stage in Paris, with a route similar to that of the 2024 Olympics road race, is this in your medium-term plans?

M. R. : Why not finish in Paris, but the Tour would have to be longer. Over nine days, it's a race format that requires maintaining suspense until the end, and arriving in the mountains seems important to me. As for Montmartre… it was magnificent. It's in the back of our minds, but it involves a lot of constraints that people don't imagine. I myself did not imagine them (smile). I was the first, in front of my television, to say: “Why are we going there? I know a great road there, etc.” Since then, I have become very aware of what the unique aspect of the Tour de France creates.

How did you plan the route for the 2025 edition?

M. R. : What shapes the route is the big departure – in this case in Brittany (July 26, editor's note) – and the final arrival, which will take place in Châtel this year (August 3). From this postulate, with my partner Franck Perque, we sit down and think about the route. We try to find a happy medium, so that the course is attractive, without killing the suspense after three days of racing. The first edition was a bit complicated. We weren't known. We had to knock on the doors of the communities, saying: “It would be nice to welcome us”. From the second edition, they were the ones who made requests to us. Now, as soon as a community applies to have the Men's Tour, they pass the message on for the women's Tour. She is applying for both. That's great news.

How much are communities willing to pay to be a stopover city? To what extent does the amount vary between male and female TDF?

M. R. : ASO never communicates on prices. It is the partners and communities who talk about it, if they decide to do so. Over the past three years, the prices have evolved and we have more and more candidates.

M. R. : It's important but, in my opinion, it's not the real fight. I experienced women's cycling at a time when I was not earning money. I was called “professional”, but I only had the name. I had to go to work to earn a minimum wage. My desire, when we established the Tour de France Femmes with Zwift, was that it would follow, that the girls would be able to have a salary, to make a living from their sport. The challenge was to obtain visibility, thanks to the most famous race in the world. With the Tour de France, we speak to an audience of connoisseurs, insiders… but also to people who don't watch cycling all year round. This spotlight was missing from women's cycling. We didn't know the champions before taking advantage of this fantastic showcase. Now, there is a lot more money in the teams, it has become structured. The financial balance remains precarious, but that no longer has anything to do with it.

Is this amount of 250,000 euros still relevant?

M. R. : Yes, we are still at 250,000 euros in bonuses in total. We didn't want to skimp on everything that makes the Tour beautiful. The Tour de France is a cycling race, but also all the infrastructure that goes with it: the caravan, which is essential for us, the start village, which does not exist in other women's cycling competitions, etc. We wanted – and we still want – to have a standing worthy of that of the men's Tour de France, and, for that, we adopted the codes. Any increase in premiums will not be to the detriment of this system. Now that the race is growing, I'm going to look into it. I would like this to evolve, but we cannot go any faster, we have to be sustainable.

In terms of growth, what does adding a step represent compared to previous editions?

M. R. : Going from eight to nine stages sends a big message regarding the development of women's cycling. The race works, we have the impression that we have existed for a long time, even though it will only be the fourth edition. When we made this decision to relaunch a Tour de France Femmes, our priority was that it would still be there in a hundred years. We are moving towards that. You have to take it step by step.

And in the very long term, do you think that the Tour de France Femmes could last two, even three weeks?

M. R. : I wish the race was longer and we didn't close any doors. We have built good foundations. It works so well that there is no going back. It's a satisfaction. But we have to move forward at the same pace as women's cycling, with teams that do not have as many squads as their male counterparts. Taking up too much space in the calendar risks killing other races, which have existed longer than us. We're not here for that.

Besides this reflection which concerns your ecosystem, what about the physiological factor? ​Do you see in him a hindrance, even if only minimal?

M. R. : It's not a physical problem. Women are capable of it. They train as much as the men, go on training at altitude…

Winner of the 2022 edition, Annemiek van Vleuten was the illustration.

M. R. : So. She shared her training with boys. So I don't see any physiological limit. On the other hand, where the problem lies is in terms of homogeneity. There is still too big a difference in level between the 10th and the 30th for us to go to three weeks at once. It's more and more homogeneous – we saw it during the 2023 edition for example, with a different winner at each stage – but not yet as much as in the men's peloton.

M. R. : We knew it was going to be complicated for the runners in this structure. It was not a gift to send them to the Tour de France Femmes. When you don't have the level, you lose track very quickly and you don't progress. It was a problem that could not be resolved because it was the responsibility of the UCI.

Interview conducted on January 9, 2025.