Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2026 Startlist: All 21 Teams & Confirmed Riders

Updated July 31, 2026 · 21 Teams · 147 Riders · Lausanne → Nice · August 1–9

This is the complete, verified Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2026 startlist, all 21 teams, all 147 confirmed riders, and the storylines that matter before the Grand Départ in Lausanne on August 1. Fourteen UCI Women’s WorldTeams qualify automatically. Seven ProTeams race on ASO invitations. Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot lines up for Visma-Lease a Bike, chasing back-to-back yellow jerseys on the same day the race makes its first visit to Mont Ventoux.

TL;DR — Tour de France Femmes 2026 Startlist at a Glance

Twenty-one teams start the 2026 Tour de France Femmes: 14 UCI Women’s WorldTeams with automatic entry, plus 7 ProTeams invited by ASO, four of them French. Each team brings exactly 7 riders, for a confirmed field of 147, the smallest since the race’s 2022 relaunch.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot returns to defend the title she won in 2025, becoming the first French rider to win any Tour de France, men’s or women’s, since 1985. She lines up for Visma-Lease a Bike alongside Marianne Vos. Her closest challengers on paper are Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ), Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM), and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L’IMAD).

The race starts in Lausanne, Switzerland, only the second time in the race’s five editions it has begun outside France. Stage 7 delivers the biggest structural change to the route: Mont Ventoux, appearing in the modern Tour de France Femmes for the first time. Stage 4 is the only time trial, 21km into Dijon.

Prize money remains sharply unequal to the men’s race: roughly €250,000 total here against €2.3 million at the men’s Tour, a gap of more than 9 times. AG Insurance-Soudal races without Sarah Gigante, who finished 6th in 2025 after cracking without team support on the final stage, her absence changes the team’s depth heading into the mountains.

Quick Facts — Tour de France Femmes 2026

How Teams Qualify for Tour de France Femmes 2026

The qualification system for the women’s Tour works differently from the men’s race, and no other startlist page explains the distinction clearly.

14 UCI Women’s WorldTeams — automatic entry. Every team holding UCI Women’s WorldTeam status has an automatic right to race. The field shrank from 15 teams in 2025 to 14 in 2026 because Ceratizit and Roland dropped out of the WorldTour tier at the end of last season, and only one team, EF Education-Oatly, stepped up to replace them.

7 UCI Women’s ProTeams — all invited by ASO. This is the structural difference from the men’s Tour, which reserves three ProTeam slots for automatic entry by UCI ranking and only two for genuine wildcard discretion. On the women’s side, there is no automatic-by-ranking tier at all — every one of the 7 ProTeam places is a discretionary ASO invitation. The teams were announced on February 18, 2026. Four of the seven are French: Cofidis Women Team, Ma Petite Entreprise, Mayenne Monbana My Pie, and St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93. The other three are Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi (Spain), Lotto Intermarché Ladies (Belgium), and VolkerWessels Cycling Team (Netherlands).

Twenty-one teams in total. Each brings 7 riders. Maximum field: 147.

Complete Confirmed Startlist — All 21 Teams

All rosters below are confirmed and cross-checked against the official rider list, published ahead of the August 1 start. Riders marked YR compete in the young rider (white jersey) classification.

UCI Women’s WorldTeams

Team Visma | Lease a Bike

Directeurs sportifs: Rutger Tijssen, Jos van Emden. Ferrand-Prévot arrives with an explicitly built support structure around her — this is a team set up to defend, not just to attack.

FDJ United-SUEZ

Directeurs sportifs: Nicolas Maire, Lars Boom. FDJ United-SUEZ secured a bike and component partnership with Specialized and Shimano running through 2028, giving the team long-term equipment stability while it builds around Vollering’s second Tour tilt.

Canyon-SRAM

Directeurs sportifs: Rolf Aldag, Adam Szabó. Niewiadoma-Phinney knows how to win this race; Niedermaier’s second place at the 2026 Giro d’Italia Women means she can no longer be treated as an understudy. Between them, Canyon-SRAM can switch leaders depending on the terrain. Zoe Bäckstedt, 21, is the daughter of former Paris-Roubaix winner Magnus Bäckstedt — who directs a rival team, Human Powered Health, this week.

UAE Team L’IMAD

Directeurs sportifs: Cherie Pridham, Michele Devoti.

Team SD Worx-Protime

Directeurs sportifs: Danny Stam, Christian Kos. Wiebes remains the fastest sprinter in the race; Kopecky gives the team an elite alternative the moment the terrain turns harder. Cavallar and Vinke were among the last names confirmed to this roster, added within the final day before the startlist locked.

Movistar Team

Directeurs sportifs: Kelvin Dekker, Jorge Sanz. Reusser’s time trial strength gives Movistar a rare tactical luxury: the ability to enter the mountains already defending a lead rather than attacking to build one.

Lidl-Trek

Directeurs sportifs: Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, Dirk Baldinger.

AG Insurance-Soudal Team

Directeurs sportifs: Jolien D’Hoore, Stijn Steels. Le Court-Pienaar had a breakout 2025 — Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour of Britain Women, and a Giro d’Italia Women podium among the highlights. This year the team races without Sarah Gigante, who finished 6th overall in 2025 (see Breaking News below).

EF Education-Oatly

Directeurs sportifs: Carmen Small, Daniel Holm Foder. EF Education-Oatly is the only team to step up from ProTeam to WorldTeam status for 2026, replacing Ceratizit and Roland in the top tier.

Fenix-Premier Tech

Directeurs sportifs: Rik Van Slycke, Kris Wouters. Kool gives the team a direct sprint rival to Wiebes; Pieterse gives them the same ability to switch leaders on selective days.

Human Powered Health

Directeurs sportifs: Magnus Bäckstedt, Clark Sheehan.

Liv AlUla Jayco

Directeurs sportifs: Wim Stroetinga, Jessica Allen.

Team Picnic PostNL

Directeurs sportifs: Callum Ferguson, Rudi Kemna.

Uno-X Mobility

Directeurs sportifs: Anna Badegruber, Martin Vestby, Nicolas Marche.

UCI Women’s ProTeams

Cofidis Women Team

Directeurs sportifs: Arthur Quilliec, Gaëtan Lemoine. One of four French ProTeams selected for 2026, racing on Campagnolo’s new Super Record 13 groupset.

St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93

Directeurs sportifs: Léonard Cosnier, Tony Hurel.

Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi

Directeurs sportifs: Ion Lazkano, Peio Goikoetxea.

VolkerWessels Cycling Team

Directeurs sportifs: Bart Faes, Larissa Havik.

Lotto Intermarché Ladies

Directeurs sportifs: Grace Verbeke, Zico Waeytens.

Ma Petite Entreprise

Directeurs sportifs: Damien Baucheron, Gaël Le Bellec.

Mayenne Monbana My Pie

Directeurs sportifs: Franck Renimel, Jean Christophe Barbotin.

On reserve: Each of the 21 teams also carries 2 reserve riders, on standby in case of a late injury or illness withdrawal before the Grand Départ — 42 riders in total, rarely covered anywhere else. A few names stand out: Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, a veteran former team leader, sits in reserve for AG Insurance-Soudal; Ricarda Bauernfeind, one of the stronger young Ardennes classics riders in the peloton, is on standby for Lidl-Trek; Aude Biannic, a French time trial specialist, is Movistar’s reserve.

Why the Field Is the Smallest Since 2022

At 147 confirmed riders, this is the smallest Tour de France Femmes field since the race’s 2022 relaunch — though not for the reason it might first appear. The 2022 debut actually had more total starters, 144 across 24 teams, but at 6 riders per team rather than 7. The field has shrunk in team count every year since: 24 teams in 2022, fewer in the seasons that followed, and now 21 in 2026.

The immediate cause is a contraction at the top of the sport. Ceratizit and Roland both dropped out of the UCI Women’s WorldTour at the end of 2025, and only one team, EF Education-Oatly, was promoted to replace them. That took the WorldTeam count from 15 to 14. ASO’s ProTeam invitations held steady at 7, so the overall team count fell from 22 to 21, and the maximum rider count fell from 154 to 147.

Defending Champion & Full Winners History

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) is the defending champion, and her 2025 victory carries weight beyond the jersey itself.

She attacked on the Col du Corbier with roughly 6km left on the final stage into Châtel, distanced her rivals, and held on to beat Demi Vollering by 3 minutes 42 seconds, with Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney third at 4:09. The win made Ferrand-Prévot the first French rider to win any Tour de France, men’s or women’s, since Bernard Hinault in 1985 and Jeannie Longo in 1989. It also made her the first rider since Hinault in 1981 to win Paris-Roubaix and the Tour in the same season, she had won Paris-Roubaix Femmes in April that year.

Sarah Gigante, then riding for AG Insurance-Soudal, held a 2:37 lead over Ferrand-Prévot heading into the final stage, but lost more than three minutes without teammates to help her and finished 6th overall. She is not on the 2026 startlist for AG Insurance-Soudal.

The race has had a different winner every year since it relaunched:

In 2025’s other classifications, Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) won the points jersey and Elise Chabbey (FDJ-Suez) won the mountains jersey.

The Grand Départ — Lausanne, Switzerland

The 2026 race starts in Lausanne on August 1, only the second time in the Tour de France Femmes’ five editions that it has begun outside France, after Rotterdam hosted the Grand Départ in 2024. Stage 1 and Stage 2 both take place on Swiss roads before the race crosses into France ahead of Stage 3.

Route Overview — 9 Stages, Mont Ventoux Debuts

Nine stages from Lausanne to Nice, covering 1,174.7km.

Mont Ventoux debuts on Stage 7 — the first appearance of the “Giant of Provence” in the modern Tour de France Femmes since the race relaunched in 2022. The stage is the closest thing to a queen stage on this route, and the mountain’s history of extreme heat, exposure, and sudden weather changes gives it a reputation few other European climbs carry.

Stage 4 is the only time trial, 21km between Gevrey-Chambertin and Dijon, the race’s one clean measure of who is riding fastest against the clock rather than against rivals.

Favourite Teams for the 2026 GC Battle

Tier 1: Visma-Lease a Bike. Ferrand-Prévot defends her title with a squad built specifically around protecting her through the mountains rather than chasing stage wins elsewhere.

Tier 2: Canyon-SRAM, FDJ United-SUEZ, UAE Team L’IMAD. Niewiadoma-Phinney and Niedermaier give Canyon-SRAM the option to switch leaders depending on terrain. Vollering returns to the race that beat her by 20 seconds last year. Longo Borghini leads a UAE Team L’IMAD roster built for the harder stages.

Tier 3: Movistar, SD Worx-Protime. Reusser’s time trial strength lets Movistar defend a GC position rather than build one from scratch. Van der Breggen leads SD Worx-Protime, with Wiebes and Kopecky covering the sprint and puncheur stages respectively.

The points battle: Wiebes defends the green jersey she won in 2025, with Marianne Vos (Visma) the most likely rider to contest it across the flatter stages.

Breaking News — The Last 48 Hours

Sarah Gigante is out of AG Insurance-Soudal’s roster. She was 2nd overall heading into the final stage of the 2025 race before cracking without team support and finishing 6th. Her absence removes a rider who was, twelve months ago, the closest challenger to the eventual champion.

SD Worx-Protime’s roster was still being finalised in the final day before the startlist locked. Valentina Cavallar and Nienke Vinke were among the last names confirmed to the team.

Notable debutantes: Zoe Bäckstedt, 21, lines up for Canyon-SRAM — daughter of Magnus Bäckstedt, the former Paris-Roubaix winner who directs rival team Human Powered Health this week. Paula Ostiz, 19, rides for Movistar as one of the field’s youngest general classification hopefuls.

Prize Money — Femmes vs the Men’s Race

The prize fund for the 2026 Tour de France Femmes is approximately €250,000 in total, with the general classification winner receiving €50,000, the runner-up €25,000, and third place €10,000. The daily yellow jersey holder receives €100 for each day she wears it.

The men’s Tour de France, by comparison, distributes €2,302,800 across the same three weeks, with the overall winner alone taking home €500,000 — ten times what the women’s winner receives. The total gap between the two races is more than nine times, a figure ASO has not closed in the race’s five editions since relaunching the women’s Tour in 2022.

Team Bikes & Sponsors

Confirmed equipment for the 2026 season: AG Insurance-Soudal moves onto new Specialized Tarmac SL9 frames, with a new Shiv time trial bike expected before the race. SD Worx-Protime also rides Specialized, making it one of three Specialized-sponsored teams in the women’s peloton, paired with SRAM components and Time pedals. Canyon-SRAM continues on Canyon’s Aeroad, Ultimate, and Speedmax TT frames with SRAM groupsets and Zipp wheels — the team drops its Zondacrypto co-title sponsorship for 2026, racing simply as Canyon-SRAM. Visma-Lease a Bike remains on Cervélo. Team Picnic PostNL rides Lapierre’s Xelius DRS and Aerostorm DRS frames with Ursus wheels. FDJ United-SUEZ has extended its Specialized and Shimano partnership through 2028.

Team Directors — Behind the Teams

A handful of directeurs sportifs bring their own racing history to this year’s race. Rolf Aldag, directing Canyon-SRAM, spent years as a professional rider before moving into management with some of the sport’s biggest teams. Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, at Lidl-Trek, was one of the most successful sprinters of her generation before stepping into team direction. Jolien D’Hoore, now guiding AG Insurance-Soudal, built her own career as a track and road sprinter. Magnus Bäckstedt, directing Human Powered Health, won Paris-Roubaix as a professional — and now finds himself directing against a team carrying his own daughter, Zoe, at Canyon-SRAM. Lars Boom, a former Roubaix and cyclocross world champion, co-directs FDJ United-SUEZ.

Where to Watch TDF Femmes 2026

Broadcast rights for the Tour de France Femmes largely mirror the men’s race in most territories. Peacock carries the race in the USA, SBS On Demand in Australia, TNT Sports and Discovery+ in the UK, and France Télévisions free-to-air in France. For a full country-by-country breakdown, see our complete live coverage guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nine Stages. One Yellow Jersey. Lausanne to Nice.

Twenty-one teams. A hundred and forty-seven riders. A defending champion trying to become the race’s first repeat winner since it relaunched, on a route that finally puts Mont Ventoux in front of them. The startlist is set. The race starts August 1.