Despite the real prospect of a stage win, and potential yellow jersey, Lara Gillespie will not ride the Tour de France Femmes this summer. The certain matter of Mont Ventoux being one of the reasons why.Gillespie made cycling history earlier this month when she became the first Irish rider to complete all three major stage races for women – finishing fourth in the points classification in the Giro d’Italia, having taken on both the Tour and the Vuelta España last summer. She came within a wheel-length of winning the Giro’s first stage into Ravenna, and with that the leader’s pink jersey, after originally taking third in the sprint finish before being promoted to second. (Dutch rider Lorena Wiebes had won the stage before being expelled from the race after her bike fell 20g below the UCI’s minimum weight limit of 6.8kg.)“Our team has really strong GC goals there,” Gillespie says of the Tour de France Femmes, which has been raced in various incarnations since 1955.“It was amazing last year, and hopefully I get to go again in the future, but unfortunately it’s not one of my goals this year.”The 25-year-old Wicklow rider, who won the coveted rainbow jersey after victory in the elimination race at the UCI World Track Championships in Santiago, Chile last October, is in her third season with professional outfit UAE Team ADQ. The team leader is Elisa Longo Borghini, and the Italian is looking for that outright GC win in the Tour, which takes in eight stages from August 1st to 9th.Despite some flat and fast opening stages in Lausanne and Geneva, perfect for Gillespie, the Tour route soon turns mountainous, taking in the revered Ventoux, the giant of Provence, on stage seven. The last two stages around Nice are similarly suited to the climbers.[ Lara Gillespie suffers in heat but takes second on stage two of Giro d’Italia WomenOpens in new window ]By her own admission, Gillespie struggled on some of the mountain stages in the Giro, not helped by the suddenly soaring June temperatures. “I’m the sprinter of the team, so I can’t help so much in the climbs. My days when I was helping her [Borghini] I was much more in the valleys, although I did climb better than expected. Brodie Chapman of Australia and Lara Gillespie of Ireland and UAE Team ADQ during the Tour de France Femmes on July 29th, 2025. Photograph: Szymon Gruchalski/Getty Images “And on these sprint stages, you’re just waiting for 160km to do an all-out 10/22 second sprint. Which for me, mentally, is fine if the heat wasn’t taking up my whole mental space. I think you have to really grow up in that heat to not be so sensitive.”Although she grew up in Enniskerry, at the foot of the Wicklow Mountains, her cycling strengths have always been more speed and power based.“I always have just had more fast-twitch [muscle fibres], and in running, I did 400m, 800m, the middle distances. I still love the climbing, and I’m definitely getting stronger at climbing. But I was born with muscly legs, there’s no way that I can be a 40kg climber.”Gillespie spends most of the season based in Germany, sharing an apartment with her boyfriend Luca Spiegel, one of Germany’s leading track cyclists. The benefits extend beyond easier access to European races.“I think having that understanding, that extra support, definitely makes a huge difference for me. I’d say it’s my dream lifestyle right now, where we wake up, we’re eating healthy, we’re going training, doing different things.”Last year, Gillespie claimed a third-place finish in stage four of the Tour and also recorded the biggest road win of her career with victory in the Beobank Samyn Ladies in Belgium in March.“For me, I like the variety, like doing different things all the time. I’m not a GC climber, so it’s not that I have to be in track form, then be in climbing form.”Her next goal will be the National Cycling Championships which take place in Castlebar and Cong in Co Mayo, at the end of June. She will then take on the Tour of Britain (August 19th-23rd) before the World Championships on the track in Shanghai in October. “I would love to defend my title there. Obviously that’s a big feat to do, but just to go there in really good form.”