Who are the riders to watch in the 2023 Women's Tour de France?

Annemiek van Vleuten, reigning Women’s Tour de France champion  

The Netherlands' van Vleuten won the first edition of the Women’s Tour de France at the age of 39 last year despite having a stomach bug during the first half of the race that nearly forced her to withdraw. She hopes to retain her title and keep the rainbow jersey worn by the reigning Tour de France champion before retiring at the end of this year. In 2022, she won the world’s three major cycling races: Spain's Vuelta, the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, and rounded off the year by winning the women’s world championship road race in Australia.  

Known as "The Cannibal", van Vleuten expects tough competition: "I’m going to do everything I can to take part in the battle for the yellow jersey (awarded to the overall winner of the Tour de France) [...] All the stages are a bit tricky before this final weekend. There are six other stages where you have to be careful." 

Throughout this race, she will be keeping an eye on fellow Dutch cyclist Demi Vollering, who she said has "demonstrated this year that she is the best and the big favourite for this Tour de France". Van Vleuten added: "She has beaten me before. It will be a challenge to beat her, but I’m ready." 

Demi Vollering, number one challenger and a dispute to settle 

This past spring, Vollering, backed by a strong team sponsored by SD Worx, celebrated a host of wins in one-day cycling races throughout Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium, including the Strade Bianche cycle race in Tuscany.  

Runner-up to van Vleuten last year, she is determined to beat her this year, especially following an incident at this year’s Vuelta that caused quite a stir: van Vleuten and her team deliberately sped up while