Moves are underway to reintroduce a women’s Tour de France.
A new document calls for a women’s event, last held in 2009, to be run alongside the men’s race from 2014.
More than 93,000 have signed a petition by a group called Le Tour Entier (it means The Whole Tour), led by cyclist and writer Kathryn Bertine, world Ironman champion Chrissie Wellington, and cyclists Marianne Vos and Emma Pooley.
The manifesto – which has been sent to the International Cycling Union (UCI) and Tour de France owners Amaury Sport Organisation – also requests that three women’s tours are established, and race and stage length restrictions for women abolished.
Bertine told BBC Sport that sponsors are in place to back the proposals.
A women’s race was first run in 1984 but the last event took place four years ago, when Pooley won.
Olympic and world road cycling champion Vos, the most successful female cyclist of all time, added: “My dream is to give women’s cycling a bigger platform, to help it have a brighter future and to show the world the beauty of the races.”
