The Tour de France Loves Its ‘Podium Girls’

SAINT-LARY-SOULAN, France — The daily ceremony during which the winners of the Tour de France’s various competitions slip into their leaders’ jerseys is tightly choreographed. And a key part of the ritual is a cycling tradition that many argue is, at best, long beyond its prime.

Each day, pairs of young women wearing high heels and dressed in evening gowns or above-the-knee skirts help the award winners into special podium versions of their jerseys, give them a trinket and, eventually, deliver chaste kisses.

The race organizer, the Amaury Sport Organization, officially calls the women “Tour hostesses.” They are universally referred to as “podium girls.”

Like many jobs at the Tour de France, their hours are long, their days often hectic and the glamour overstated. For many women, particularly those involved in cycling, the routine seems out of touch, if not offensive, in the 21st century.

“A.S.O., frankly, have a problem with women,” Emma Pooley, a retired professional cyclist from Britain, said. “There is a role for people on the podium to make the presentation glamorous. It really helps to have people there who know what they’re doing when they hand out the goodies. What I don’t understand is why sex or sexuality has anything to do with it.”

At a time when the treatment of women in their work roles is being widely examined and challenged, the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia, its Italian counterpart, are increasingly isolated. The Vuelta a España, the third of the grand cycling tours and another A.S.O. property, now has men and women presenting at the same time on its podiums. The Tour of California followed along this year. Australia’s Tour Down Under exchanged its female podium presenters for young cyclists after the South Australian Government pulled its funding for the ceremony two years ago. And the International Cycling Union, the sport’s governing body, decided last month to use the Vuelta’s method at the sport’s various world championships.

The Tour de France is hardly alone in a sports world that often clings to its traditional philosophies on gender issues. The N.F.L. will open its season in September with scantily clad cheerleaders, despite renewed scrutiny of their role and accusations of mistreatment of them. At Wimbledon, chair umpires referred to the recently married Serena Williams as “Mrs. Williams,” while married men are simply called by their surname.

Fabrice Tiano, a spokesman for the Tour de France, said that the race director, Christian Prudhomme, is no longer discussing the issue of the hostesses.

Tiano said that news reports earlier this year that the Tour was reassessing its podium policy had no basis in fact. He said the current system had its own logic of equality and would remain.

“On women’s races we have men on the podium; on men’s races we have women on the podium,” he said.

The presenters’ workdays generally begin at a V.I.P. area where Tour sponsors receive corporate guests well before the stage starts. As those guests are then ferried along the race route in cars and vans driven by retired cycling stars and, for those with the greatest pull, helicopters, some of the hostesses act as valets, driving the guests’ cars to the finish line. Once the podium is over, they quickly change out of their evening dresses to reunite the guests with their cars.

For many years, the podium presenters were recruited from the towns and cities where each stage finished. Currently, the corporate sponsors of each award select and hire the women using modeling agencies. Brief biographies of the presenters that Crédit Lyonnais, the yellow jersey sponsor, put out as recently as two years ago indicated that most of the women were students, some of them in graduate programs. Most spoke more than one language.

In theory, the women are not allowed to have any contact with the riders beyond the podium, but romances have blossomed. In 2003, Melanie Simonneau was fired after receiving a note from George Hincapie, an American and close ally of Lance Armstrong. It all worked out: They married.

There have been instances of inappropriate behavior involving the hostesses. Five years ago, Peter Sagan pinched the bottom of Maja Leye, a hostess at the Tour of Flanders in Belgium, as she was kissing the winner. Sagan, who has won three stages at this year’s Tour and holds the best sprinter’s jersey, apologized but was not penalized.

Regardless of how the hostesses are treated, Pooley said she could not understand why both men and women could not perform the job and why smart professional dress could not replace the evening gowns that are colored to match the jerseys. She said the podium program personified A.S.O.’s view of women. The organization has refused to restore a full stage race for women. It currently runs only a one-day event ahead of the men at the Tour.

“Can you imagine going to the New York Marathon and the only women you see are presenting trophies to men?” Pooley said. “And the women’s race was somewhere else and only five kilometers?”

Large global sponsors, including Coca-Cola, have largely dropped the Tour. The current crop, like Crédit Lyonnais, a bank and insurer, are mostly active in France.

In a brief email, Crédit Lyonnais said that it supported the Tour’s podium policy and noted that the women working at the race had several duties.

Skoda, the Czech carmaker, did not respond to requests for comment. It is a unit of Volkswagen and the sponsor of the green jersey Sagan now carries (and tore during a fall on Wednesday’s mountain stage).

Pooley, who now works as a commentator at the Global Cycling Network, an online video service, said she was not confident that the Tour would soon include men and women on its podium and end the kissing.

“They have the greatest bike race in the world, and it works well,” she said. “Why would they change anything?”