It's Your Women's Tour de France La Course in Review! #lacourse

Okay, so I got some crap for not covering La Course in more detail (tho I *was* working a freakin' bike event for 13 hours so cut me some slack dag nabit). And what do I find? Holy crap, even getting enough info now on basics like the race route's a nutwhack! Anyhow, so here's to the first of many more (and three weeks more, for heck's sake): yer inaugural women's La Course!

The Route: Just another day on the Champs-Elysees, baby, 89 kilometers of flat as a (slightly lumpy) pancake and beggin' for action!


The Contenders: Who *wasn't* there? Vos, Bronzini, Olds, Wild, Barnes, Van Dijk, Worrack...hell, if the Tour had managed to hold onto half so bangin' a field, it coulda been a very different race!

How It Went Down: interestingly, Bronzini's Wiggle-Honda, for one, wasn't convinced it'd end in a bunch sprint. And breakaways we got, but a relentless peloton kept bringin' 'em back. Disaster at 1.2k to go: Lizzie Armitstead and reigning French national champ Prevot hit the deck, and Wild's chances for a win were arguably blown when she punctured then had to chase back on. Final podium: Marianne Vos, Kirsten Wild (even after her puncture!), and Leah Kirchmann. Next year: oh come on, Giorgia will so either take it!

TV Coverage: As usual, glad to get any scraps I can get, but at least Universal carried highlights, and huge points to Gogo for rightly comparing Marianne Vos to Eddy Merckx, though it's also worth noting that in addition to being a road, mtb and cross champ, Vos has also been observed to personally MacGyver a fully-functional race-ready road bike outta kitchen twine, wire hangers, cut-up rubber raincoats, and aluminum foil. Right on Marianne!

And, the Coolest Footage Ever: if you ever wondered what it was like to be the most kick-!@# athlete in the world, here's the Vos cam to take you through it, complete with primal scream o' victory. Why is there not some huge bronze statue to this woman?!


Anyway, that's La Course for this year, and I think we've all answered the question whether there's a market. Now UCI, let's pop some champagne, quit treating these women like wilting violets, let 'em do the three week stage races they deserve, and get 'em all-day live coverage to boot!