Megan Armitage to make history in women’s Tour de France

Megan Armitage will make history on Sunday when she becomes the first Irish competitor to line out in the women’s Tour de France.

The Offaly rider was confirmed for the race on Monday by her Arkéa Pro Cycling Team, and will join with five team-mates in the eight day event.

She has been one of the strongest competitors this year with her team, winning the final stage and the overall classification in the Vuelta Extremadura Féminas in Spain, netting fourth in the Grand Prix Féminin de Chambéry and taking a number of other fine results.

“Megan Armitage has great climbing skills,” her team said in Monday’s announcement of its Tour line-up. “She is capable of achieving great things on mountain stages, and has already demonstrated this during the season. The Tourmalet stage, in a very high-level context, can be a good test for her in order to benchmark herself against the best climbers in the world.”

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The team said that it wants the riders to focus on an aggressive approach to the race rather than taking a more strategic view with regards to the general classification.

The French squad raced there last season and manager Emmanuel Hubert said he wanted the team to be prominent. “It is up to our riders to seize their chance, to go into the breakaways, to try in order to achieve great performances and to make the red and black colours of Arkéa Pro Cycling Team shine as high as possible.”

The women’s Tour has been run on and off in various incarnations over the past few decades, but with no Irish participation. The event is now an important project of long-time men’s Tour organiser ASO and looks set to grow and grow.

It will begin in Clermont-Ferrand on Sunday and conclude one week later in Pau.