Tour de France Femmes winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot earned 10 times less prize money than Tadej Pogačar

Tour de France Femmes winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot earned 10 times less prize money than Tadej Pogačar

The pay disparity has prompted comments from race organiser Marion Rousse

Tim de Wale / Getty Images


With Pauline Ferrand-Prévot winning the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Visma-Lease a Bike took home the most prize money from the fourth edition of the race. 

The Olympic mountain bike champion’s yellow jersey and two stage wins, plus a third stage win from teammate Marianne Vos and other miscellaneous prizes, saw the team take home €76,190. 

But while that might seem like a big chunk of money, there is a large discrepancy between the winnings at the women’s race compared to those at the men’s.

10 times the winnings 

Tadej Pogacar celebrates on the podium with the overall leader's yellow jersey after the 21st and final stage of the 112th edition of the Tour de France cycling race.
Tadej Pogačar claimed €600,000 in prize money at the 2025 Tour de France. Marco Bertorello / Getty Images

Ferrand-Prévot, the first French winner of the grand tour since Bernard Hinault in 1985, earned €50,000 for her maillot jaune. Tadej Pogačar won €500,000 – 10 times Ferrand-Prévot’s prize – for his victory at the 2025 Tour de France. 

The Slovenian also earned an extra €100,000 through other prizes, including his four stage wins, taking his total winnings to €600,000. 

The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and the Giro d’Italia Women pay the largest prizes in women’s cycling. 

Race organisers ASO paid out a total of €259,430 at this year’s Tour de France Femmes. 

For comparison, the 2025 men’s Tour de France had a total prize purse of €2,578,000, which is also close to 10 times the amount for the women’s race.  

Behind Team Visma–Lease a Bike and Ferrand-Prévot’s winnings, FDJ-Suez won €53,810, while UAE Team ADQ bagged €25,630, thanks in part to Maeva Squiban’s back-to-back stage wins.

Five teams, including Uno-X Mobility, won less than €500 at this year’s Tour de France Femmes. 

Women’s cycling was “non-existent” 

Tour de France Femmes director Marion Rousse.
Tour de France Femmes race director Marion Rousse: “We have to realise that women's cycling, even four years ago, was non-existent.” 

One person who has tried to put the women’s prize money question into context is Marion Rousse.

A former professional cyclist and French champion, Rousse has been director of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift since its return in 2022. 

Caught on microphone by Clapping media, and reported by DH Les Sports, Rousse said: “We have to realise that women's cycling, even four years ago, was non-existent.” 

She was also keen to reframe the comparison between the men’s and women’s Tours. 

“We took the Tour de France men's race, which lasts three weeks, and the Tour de France Femmes with Zwift, which lasts nine days of racing. Obviously, we have to compare like with like,” she said.

“When you compare the prize money, the Tour de France Femmes with Zwift is higher than the prize money for men over the same race day.”

Tour de France Femmes vs Tour de France prize money 

Tour de France Femmes (€) Tour de France (€)
Overall GC victory 50,000 500,000
Points classification 3,000 25,000
QOM/KOM winner 3,000 25,000
Youth classification 3,000 20,000
Stage win 4,000 11,000
Total 264,000 2,578,000

Has the situation improved? 

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot celebrating stage win at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot celebrates as she wins stage 9 at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. Julien de Rosa / Getty Images

Rousse also commented on how women’s racing has changed compared to a few years ago. 

“There was no salary. The girls were professionals, but they had to go to work in the afternoon to earn a salary,” she said.

Rousse added that the increased media coverage has helped bring in sponsors and, therefore, a minimum wage. 

This is something Zwift highlighted in its Tour de France Femmes report before the 2025 edition of the race got underway. 

“For years, women’s cycling lacked the investment, media coverage, and exposure it deserved,” the report said. 

“In 2022 this changed with the introduction of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. With the much increased visibility brought to the sport by this race, it has done more than make history. It has transformed the future of the sport.”

Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift stage 4.
A Zwift report highlighted how this is a “golden age” for women’s cycling. Leon van Bon / Zwift

The report, which claimed this is a “golden age” for women’s cycling, highlighted how 85 per cent of people consider professional cycling as a viable profession, thanks in part to minimum salary requirements. 

“In 2020, the minimum salary stood at €15,000 but has increased to €31,768 in 2025, for new riders who are team employees. 2025 also saw the introduction of a ProTeam category with a minimum rider salary of €20,000, which is set to increase to €24,000 by 2027,” the report noted.

The Cycling Alliance also reports that by 2024, the average salary had risen to €40,000, with 15 per cent of those surveyed earning over €100,000. 

Women’s WorldTour team budgets have risen to an average of €4.67m, a significant increase from the 2022 average of €2.35m. But this lags far behind the men’s WorldTour team budgets. Escape Collective reported in June an increase by 40 per cent from 2021 to 2024, from €20m to €28m. 

However, race director Rousse ultimately focused on the importance of salaries, and said: “I think that was the most important thing, to be able to live off your passion rather than relying on bonuses that don't make up our salary at all.”