Beyond the Podium

• Posted by Adam Warner
• on July 26th, 2010

So the best thing about winning a stage at Le Tour is of course the pride of winning a grueling 100+ mile bike race against the best in the world getting kisses from the gorgeous podium girls.

Bul who are they? Some intrepid Times reporter has apparently spent the month of July researching the topic and writes an article that….well….I kind of feel like I jumped into a time machine to sometime before I was born (and I’m not exactly young).

Over 3 weeks, 21 stages and 2,263 miles, the Tour de France may be the most grueling sporting event in the world. But a closer look reveals another contest as competitive as what the cyclists have faced along the route that ends on Sunday in Paris.

The unlikely contenders are officially called Tour hostesses but more commonly, and somewhat indelicately, are known as podium girls. These poised and photogenic women have the high-profile job of handing prizes to riders at the finish line of each stage.

As the Tour ends, the hostesses’ finish line is also fast approaching. The plum assignment is to award the jerseys to the top riders in Paris, where the stage is set on the Champs-Élysées. Pictures from that ceremony are seen worldwide.

“It’s not an easy decision to make, but it’s all about who will photograph the best on that day, and some girls might have a pimple or might look tired in the eyes,” said Sophie Moressee-Pichot, the sponsorship manager of Crédit Lyonnais, the French bank that sponsors the overall leader’s yellow jersey. “So I always explain why they are not chosen, but the girls think it’s a sanction, like they did something wrong.

“Ah, yes, the girls cry. Yes, always, there are tears.”

It’s like that Simpsons “Malibu Stacy” come to lift. Except that was intentional satire, this only reads like one.

I don’t know, I bike a lot, fairly certain I’ve seen some women bikers fly past me. So why no women’s Tour? Well….

“We would love to have a women’s Tour, but we already close the roads for hours and hours, so it is logistically impossible to do that twice a year,” (Tour director Christian) Prudhomme said. “But remember, there were no women in the Tour organization for 30 years, so that’s changing now. I am doing all I can for that to change.”

So what’s he doing to leave 1961 behind?

Prudhomme chose a woman, Claire Pedrono, a cycling champion of the Brittany region in France, for a prestigious job at this Tour: holding up the race blackboard that tells the cyclists time information, such as how far they are ahead of the pack behind them. She rides the course on the back of a motorcycle.

OK, that’s progress, right?

“I felt like she deserved that honor because of her accomplishments as a cyclist,” Prudhomme said. “But I have to be honest with you, it also doesn’t hurt that she has a nice smile.”

I give up.

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