Cycling data project · Strava segment analysis
One climb, two races: étape riders vs the Tour de France Femmes pros
On August 6, the amateurs of L’Étape du Tour Femmes climbed Mont Ventoux. One day later, stage 7 of the Tour de France Femmes finished on the same summit. Both fields rolled over the same Strava segment — the classic Bédoin ascent — which makes the Ventoux the one mountain of 2026 where you can put the étape’s best and World Tour pros on a single leaderboard, one day apart. Here is that leaderboard, with every effort classified by which race it belongs to.
The women’s leaderboard, both races merged
Top 25 women on the segment across the week of the two races: 15 stage-7 pros, 6 étape riders, 1 with a privacy-masked start hour on race day (Aug 7 — could be either a pro or a spectator, so it stays unclassified) and 3 riding on other days. Étape riders link to their rider pages in the explorer, with their official result attached.
| # | Rider | When | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elisa Longo BorghiniPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 13:12 | 1:07:44 |
| 2 | Paula Blasi CairolPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:50 | 1:07:51 |
| 3 | Kim (Le Court) PienaarPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:50 | 1:09:54 |
| 4 | Marion BunelPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 13:04 | 1:11:39 |
| 5 | Thalita de JongPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:50 | 1:12:04 |
| 6 | Victoria StansfieldÉTAPE étape: 28th overall · 3:36:03 | Aug 6 · 07:00 | 1:12:45 |
| 7 | Justine GhekierePRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 13:12 | 1:15:58 |
| 8 | Maeva SquibanPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:50 | 1:17:14 |
| 9 | Solène MullerAUG 7 · HOUR HIDDEN | Aug 7 · — | 1:17:35 |
| 10 | Emily HarropÉTAPE étape: 86th overall · 3:47:10 | Aug 6 · 06:50 | 1:19:28 |
| 11 | Nadia GontovaPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:50 | 1:19:47 |
| 12 | Juliette BerthetPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:50 | 1:21:34 |
| 13 | Océane MahePRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:49 | 1:22:40 |
| 14 | Sigrid Ytterhus HaugsetPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:50 | 1:24:44 |
| 15 | Rhylee AkeroydÉTAPE étape: 108th overall · 3:49:29 | Aug 6 · 07:00 | 1:25:28 |
| 16 | Lotte ClaesPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 13:12 | 1:29:00 |
| 17 | Solène MarnoniÉTAPE étape: 140th overall · 3:53:10 | Aug 6 · — | 1:29:43 |
| 18 | Jasmine DennisonÉTAPE étape: 307th overall · 4:09:22 | Aug 6 · — | 1:29:47 |
| 19 | Laura ASENCIOPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:45 | 1:30:42 |
| 20 | Amandine MullerÉTAPE | Aug 6 · 07:11 | 1:31:12 |
| 21 | Arianna FidanzaPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:50 | 1:32:25 |
| 22 | Merleyn KoopsOTHER DAY | Aug 7 · 07:32 | 1:32:38 |
| 23 | Lucie FityusPRO · STAGE 7 | Aug 7 · 12:50 | 1:33:26 |
| 24 | Clara KoppenburgOTHER DAY | Aug 7 · 08:31 | 1:33:33 |
| 25 | Henrietta ChristieOTHER DAY | Aug 7 · 12:06 | 1:33:36 |
VAM = vertical metres per hour. Efforts are classified by start day and time: Aug 6 = étape day (road closed for the event); Aug 7 inside the ~12:45–13:15 race window = stage-7 peloton.
How close is the best amateur to the pros?
Victoria Stansfield, first woman of the étape (28th overall in the mixed field), climbed the segment in 1:12:45 — good for 6th among every woman who posted that week, pros included. Only five stage-7 pros went faster; the best of them, Elisa Longo Borghini (1:07:44), took 5:01 out of her — while racing a World Tour stage, not chasing a segment.
Second étape woman on the segment, Emily Harrop (rider page), posted 1:19:28 — 10th on the merged board, inside a top 10 otherwise made of stage-7 pros and one masked race-day effort. Two amateurs in the overall women’s top 10, one day after their own race.
Caveat on the framing: the étape riders did a 111.7 km race that finishes on the climb; the pros hit it at the end of a World Tour road stage, racing tactically, not time-trialling the segment. It’s a real-world comparison, not a lab one.
The men’s étape board
No pro benchmark here: the men’s Tour de France did not climb the Ventoux in 2026, so the men’s leaderboard is an amateurs-only affair — 51 of the top 75 that week are étape-day efforts. Étape winner Thibaut Clément (official winner in 3:13:37) tops it in 1:03:16 at 382 W average —1,488 Vm/h up the whole climb, at the end of a 111.7 km race.
| # | Rider | When | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thibaut ClémentÉTAPE étape: 1st overall · 3:13:37 | Aug 6 · 07:00 | 1:03:16 |
| 2 | Drake DeuelÉTAPE étape: 281st overall · 4:07:24 | Aug 6 · 06:17 | 1:04:58 |
| 4 | Arthur BlancÉTAPE étape: 3rd overall · 3:16:38 | Aug 6 · 07:02 | 1:06:30 |
| 5 | Robin BourdierÉTAPE étape: 4th overall · 3:19:11 | Aug 6 · 07:00 | 1:09:13 |
| 6 | Tim AllemanÉTAPE étape: 5th overall · 3:19:17 | Aug 6 · — | 1:09:14 |
| 7 | Bruno MORELÉTAPE étape: 12th overall · 3:24:02 | Aug 6 · 07:00 | 1:09:59 |
| 8 | Valentin MartinetÉTAPE étape: 8th overall · 3:20:11 | Aug 6 · 07:00 | 1:10:18 |
| 9 | Alexy DelonguevilleÉTAPE étape: 27th overall · 3:36:00 | Aug 6 · 07:08 | 1:10:35 |
| 10 | Adrien GuillonnetÉTAPE étape: 17th overall · 3:28:28 | Aug 6 · 07:02 | 1:11:04 |
| 11 | Adrien VidalÉTAPE étape: 19th overall · 3:31:27 | Aug 6 · 07:16 | 1:11:09 |
Étape-day efforts only (top 10 shown of 51 in the captured top 75).
Watts and VAM, where riders share them
Power numbers are only visible when a rider publishes them — and the pros mostly don’t (6 of 31 stage-7 efforts in the top 75 show watts, vs 17 of 26 étape women and 44 of 51 étape men). VAM, computed from time alone, covers everyone.
| Group (top 75 of each board) | Efforts | With watts | Median watts | Median VAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pros (stage 7, women) | 31 | 6 | 218 W | 1,005 Vm/h |
| Étape women | 26 | 17 | 191 W | 948 Vm/h |
| Étape men | 51 | 44 | 288 W | 1,194 Vm/h |
Median watts describe only the riders who publish power — a self-selected subset within an already self-selected leaderboard. Raw watts also aren’t weight-normalised; VAM is the fairer cross-group number on a climb this steep.
What a Strava leaderboard can and cannot tell you
Strava is self-selected. Only riders who upload publicly appear. The starkest example: the rider who actually won stage 7 never posted the ride, so the “best pro” column is whoever uploaded — the pro side of this board is incomplete by construction, and every gap to a pro is a gap to the best posting pro.
Elapsed time is not official timing. Segment times come from GPS matching, not timing mats, and the segment’s boundaries are not the races’ timing points — neither event ranked anyone on this exact stretch.
Different days, different conditions. Étape amateurs climbed on the morning of Aug 6; the peloton passed around midday on Aug 7. Wind and heat on the Ventoux can move a climb time by minutes between two days — or two hours.
Masked starts stay unclassified. Privacy-masked efforts on Aug 7 (day known, hour hidden) could be pros or spectators; they are labelled as such rather than guessed into either race.
Snapshot. Leaderboard captured on 2026-08-09; late uploads after that date are not included. Official étape results are matched by normalized name (unique matches only), so some étape riders show no rider-page link.
L’Étape du Tour Femmes 2026 explorer Official Ventoux climb ranking Le doublé
Source: Strava segment leaderboard for the Bédoin ascent of Mont Ventoux (top 75 per gender, captured 2026-08-09), cross-referenced against the official étape timing data.