According to a report published by The Times, Tour de France will end the tradition of podium girls on its awards stage.
Vuelta a Espana became the first Grand Tour to stop using girls to award prizes last year and Tour de France organisers have held talks about abandoning the practice for this year’s race, which begins in Noirmoutier-en-l’Île on July 7.
The news comes after darts scrapped the practice of using walk-on girls alongside players at televised tournaments and a week later after Formula One announced that walk-on grid girls were axed from the motorsport.
If so, the Giro d’Italia will become the only event in the Grand Tour to still use podium girls. Smaller races, like Tour Down Under, have ditched podium girls in favor of junior racers and other presenters.
In 2017, Jan Bakelants made disparaging remarks about podium girls prior to the Tour. When asked about sexual abstention during the race, he made a reference to pornographic movies and added in an interview in Het Laastse Nieuws, “There are also the podium hostesses.”
