Lausanne’s steep streets and its quaysides alongside Lake Geneva have often been the setting for major cycling events. The Tour de France has halted here six times since 1948, most recently in 2022 when Wout van Aert triumphed in a reduced bunch sprint. It was in Lausanne that Swiss rider Walter Diggelmann became the last home winner of a Tour stage, 73 years ago now. The Tour’s not the only stage race to have set up camp here, as the Tour de Romandie and the Tour de Suisse have also made frequent stops. Although the Souvenir Magali Pache, a demanding individual time trial for women that was held between 2001 and 2010 in memory of a Swiss champion who was the victim of a tragic accident, is no longer on the calendar – a fate shared by the Zurich-Lausanne road race that was organised in the immediate post-war period and by the beautiful one-day Classic À Travers Lausanne – the riders won’t be in unfamiliar territory in the city that’s the home of the Olympic movement. The Tour de Romandie Féminin had finishes here in 2022 and 2024, victory going to Cuba’s Alenis Sierra and Italy’s Elisa Balsamo, respectively.