Tour de France 2022: Women's Tour will be held for first time in 33 years

The women's Tour de France returns next year, 33 years after it was last staged and will take place from July 24 to 31, 2022.

The route for the Tour de France Femmes with Zwift was announced on the same day as the route of the 2022 men's Tour.

The women's Tour will start from Paris and finish at the top of the Super Planche des Belles Filles climb. In total, it will be an eight-stage ride through eastern France.

"It's a balanced route, that will suit several types of riders," Marion Rousse, the race director, told reporters.

Christian Prudhomme, who is the men's Tour director, said the biggest challenge was to make the race a financially sustainable event.

"If it had been [sustainable], the women's Tour would have been held for 40 years," he told reporters on Thursday, ahead of a presentation ceremony for the 2022 men's and women's Tours.

"The biggest challenge is to broadcast the race. I think we've done a good job, with the race starting the same day as the men's race ends in Paris," Prudhomme said, adding the event would be broadcast in 170 countries.

While more than 300 towns apply and pay to host a stage of the men's Tour every year, Prudhomme had to approach candidates himself for the women's race.

"But they are all paying an entry fee and to give you an element of comparison, it's more than for [the week-long men's stage races] Paris-Nice and the Criterium du Dauphine," he added.

"The goal is to organise a race that will stay, that will still exist in 100 years, that I can watch when I'm old and using a walker," Prudhomme, who is now 60-year-old, said.

The 2022 women's Tour will run from July 24 to 31 and it commences two weeks after the end of the longest women's race on the calendar, the Giro Donne.

'Versatile' riders and strong teams needed for men's tour

Tour de France organisers have also designed a treacherous route for the 2022 men's edition, which will feature rides in gusting winds, cobblestones and punishing mountain stages.

The race will start with a 13km individual time trial in Copenhagen, before the second stage takes the peloton over the 18km Great Belt bridge.

"It's windy 364 days a year, here," Tour director Prudhomme said on Thursday. "This Tour can be lost as early as the second day."

Those who get past the three-day opening block in Denmark and fourth stage through the Flanders hills must cope with the fifth stage through cobbled sectors between Lille and Arenberg.

That is when light climbers are expected to suffer on a day that could be marred by crashes and mechanicals, due to the tricky terrain which usually favours one-day race specialists.

"To go through these stages and hope to win the Tour, you will need to be a versatile rider and have a strong team at your disposal," Thierry Gouvenou, the Tour deputy, commented.

The first test for climbers will come on the seventh stage, with the first of five summit finishes at the top of the Planche des Belles Filles.

The race will reach its highest point at the top of the lung-busting ascent to the Col du Galibier, 2,607 metres above sea level, on the way to a summit finish at the Col du Granon (2,413 metres).

The 12th stage starts from Briancon and ends atop the iconic Alpe d'Huez (13.8km at 8.1 per cent), taking the same route as the 1986 Tour, when five-time winner Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond crossed the line hand-in-hand for a famous one-two.

After two brutal stages in the Pyrenees, the race will be completed with a 40km individual time trial in Southwestern France and the mostly processional ride to the Champs Elysees in Paris.