For the Tashkent City Women’s Pro Cycling Team, just getting to the start line of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift was already a win. The development team from Uzbekistan received an invitation to be one of the 22 teams competing at the world's biggest women's race after finishing 19th in the International Cycling Union ranking at the end of 2023 and netting a wildcard spot for the Tour.
However, their entry did not come without controversy. Other teams at the Women's Continental level questioned the legitimacy of Tashkent's UCI points, many of which were accumulated in lesser-known events far from the main racing circuits. The UCI took note of these concerns and revised the points accordingly. Still, thanks to the folding of the longstanding TIBCO-SVB team, the merging of Liv Racing TeqFind and Jayco-AlUla teams, and Tashkent’s point-gathering endeavours, the team found itself in Rotterdam on August 12th — their barely branded campervan hiding in the shadows of the gleaming team buses and fleet of support vehicles of the Women's WorldTour elite.
