La Course, which had such a spectacular finish on Friday, will play a vital role in the advancement of women’s cycling A potentially game-changing development for the whole of cycling was almost lost on Friday afternoon not long after Marianne Vos scored a crushing and spectacular victory in La Course , the one-day women’s race run alongside the Tour de France. The Tour organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation, Reuters reported, intend to set up a women’s stage race that will be the equivalent to its flagship event and have set up a group dedicated to developing women’s cycling. “Women cyclists need a race which is to them what the Tour de France is to the men and we need to find a solution for that,” an ASO official said when asked for more detail by the Observer . The group will begin work in September – once French holidays are out of the way in August – and it will initially be “in a reflective state” and there will be no pre-determined schedule. “We will have to move fast and we will have to do it well,”