Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar), the defending Tour de France Femme champion, fully supported the newly announced 2023 route.

Van Vleuten said she is satisfied with the length of the 2023 Tour de France Femme and the same eight-day structure as in 2022. However, she did not rule out extending the women's race to the same duration as the men's in the future.

She also argued that this year's eighth stage, a time trial in Pau, and a summit finish on a famous climb like Tourmalet the day before would make the Tour de France Femme "more complete."

On a personal note, as the defending road race champion entering the final year of his career in 2023, van Breutenen said he was very much looking forward to riding the Tour in the rainbow jersey. ["It's a dream come true to wear the rainbow jersey to the start of the Tour de France," the 40-year-old Van Vleuten told reporters in Paris on Thursday.

She won yellow on the first day and admitted she wouldn't mind "sacrificing" the rainbow jersey for it. What is important, however, is that she will start the race as the defending world champion with the number 1 dorsal on her back.

Much of the outcome of the 2023 Tour will depend on the last two stages. However, Van Vleuten noted that having suffered from severe physical problems early in the 2022 race, he is well aware of how important the first three-quarters of the stage is, with its narrow, technical roads through the hilly terrain of central France.

"The early stages aren't scary, but they can be tricky and you have to stay focused," she insisted.

"But that's no different than in 2022, when I had to survive six stages and recover from an illness. But that's no different than 2022, when I had to survive six stages and recover from my illness. But that's the Tour de France after all."

In any case, Van Vleuten was unqualified in his praise of the Tour's decision to head south and take on Tourmalet as the Tour de France enters a crucial weekend. This climb up the Pyrenees will play a similar role to the superplanche of Belle Filles in 2022, with the crucial difference that it will be followed by a time trial.

"It's important to have a famous, hard, long climb because the men's Tour de France also has a hard climb, and I'm glad they added this one. It's at a higher elevation and it suits me very well."

Van Vleuten has never climbed the Tourmalet, but he is confident he can do well and said, "It will be a day where I can certainly make time. The other days I have to defend myself. The time trial suits me, but it also suits my competitors."

In any case, she noted that the 2022 edition had a greater overall elevation gain, but the addition of Pau's time trial made the Tour de France Femme a more well-rounded event.

"Belle Filles was hard, but not 'mountainous,'" she argued of the final weekend format. So (2023) is an upgrade."

In the long run, Van Vleuten saw the potential for the Tour de France Femme to evolve in other ways, such as becoming three weeks instead of the current eight days. However, she argued that this would require a change in the way the women's peloton trained and became accustomed to a greater challenge. She also wasn't sure that a long stage race would automatically make things interesting.

"I think the girls can do it [a three-week race]. The key question is if three weeks longer would make it a more exciting race."[28] [29] "I'm not sure that the women's race would be more exciting if it were longer.

She questioned the importance of the three-week race, saying, "It's not going to get more interesting, it's not going to get more interesting."

Turning to 2023, she is also looking forward to seeing the men's peloton tackle a route very similar to the one in the Vosges Mountains, where she won a devastating stage 7 of this year's Tour de France Femme. The final mountains the men will attempt in the 2023 Tour are the Petit Baron and Platzelwasel passes on stage 20; the end of stage 20 of the 2023 Tour will be Le Marckstein, which was also the finish line for the 2022 Tour de France women.

If he had a recommendation for the men in Vosges next July, he replied with a laugh, "Attack from the first climb. I did."

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