Tour de France Femmes: Gravity Media France on Overlapping Schedules and Athlete Accessibility

New classic: EMG / Gravity Media France on overlapping schedules and athlete accessibility on the Tour de France Femmes By Heather McLean

Monday, June 30, 2025 - 14:23

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Stage 1 of the Tour de Femmes raced through central Paris in the first edition of the race in 2022

The Tour de France Femmes already feels like a regular in the cycling annual calendar, yet 2025 marks only the fourth edition of this gruelling race.

Organised by Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), which also runs the Tour de France, as well as being part of the UCI Women's World Tour, Tour de France Femmes has been taking place straight after the men's race bar last year when Paris 2024 meant it had to be delayed until after the Games as an eight day event. This year marks the first time the race will run over nine days, with hilly and mountainous latter stages that are set to test the athletes competing for the yellow jersey.

EMG / Gravity Media's French division is once again providing the technical services for host broadcaster, France T l visions.

The race will have a Grand D part in Brittany, north-west France, on 26 July, finishing on 3 August 2025. EMG / Gravity Media France's CTO, Rudy Dendleux, says the production for this smaller but highly significant race is more streamlined than for the men's Tour. However, the production spec is actually the same as what EMG / Gravity Media would use for any other bike race.

Standard race setup

Comments Dendleux on how the production will work: So on the Tour de France Femmes, it's only four motorbikes on the race and one shooting helicopter and one fixed relay. It's a smaller race, but it's equal to the other races that we were doing apart from the Tour de France.

To give you an example, so this is the same configuration that we deployed for Paris-Nice [an annual cycling race, which took place this year from 9 to 16 March]. So this is a standard race setup.

He continues: Tour de France is in a different league. We are covering the Giro [d'Italia] as well, and Tour de France is not the same thing from a production point of view, Dendleux says on the length and complexity of the Tour. It's one of the three main events each year; it's something totally different for everybody, working on it, from the aircraft technician to the riders who are competing. The pressure is huge, so it's definitely not the same thing.

Overlapping schedules

On the biggest challenge for the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, scheduling and subsequently, finding crew members, has been the biggest issue for EMG /Gravity Media France. The Tour de France finishes on 27 July, but the Tour de France Femmes leaves Brittany on the 26 July.

Dendleux explains: What is challenging is this year Tour de France Femmes and Tour de France Hommes are colliding from a time schedule point of view. So we must deploy more motorbikes; the previous year we could use some of the motorbikes of the Tour de France on the Tour de France Femmes.

But this year we have two day's production that are overlapping, so we need to book more trucks, more motorbikes, more helicopters. So it's two separate production running at the same time. That is something that is very challenging this year for us.

Adds Dendleux: Tour de France Femmes is a very successful story from a TV point of view, and there is more and more people watching this event every year. So ASO they took the opportunity to go with that, and to extend the number of production days [to nine].

The Tour de France crew will be sent back home when the men's race finishes, while the completely sperate crew on the women's race will continue on their job.

Athlete access

Dendleux says one major benefit of the Tour de France Femmes is that the crew can get more access to the athletes, as with many female sports that are in the rise.

He comments: The women on the Tour de France Femmes are [great to work with] because they get less pressure, and they are happy to work with TV, and so it's very comfortable to work on the Tour.

To give you an example, we did some trials over a public network in which we put a smartphone under the saddle of some woman riders. They were very, very welcoming, and very happy to have that trial with us, which is not always the case with the men.

LINK:	https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/new-classic-emg-gravity-media...
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