Former pro cyclist and filmmaker Kathryn Bertine is careful when choosing how to describe the 2022 Tour de France Femmes, which concluded on Sunday with Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten cruising to victory. “Too many headlines are reading, ‘the first,'” says Bertine.
Other stories went with ‘inaugural’ which is more accurate — definition: “the first in a series of planned events” — but still misleading. “I think the general public just equates ‘inaugural’ with ‘first,'” she says.
For Bertine, this distinction isn’t just about semantics. It’s about making sure history isn’t erased. If you want to talk about the “first” women’s Tour de France, you’d have to go back to 1955.
That year, 41 athletes competed in a five-stage, one-off race that was contested separately from the men’s competition. Nearly 30 years later in 1984, Tour de France organizers hosted a women’s race in conjunction with the men’s event, marking the first official Women’s Tour de France.