As spring takes maintain throughout Europe, the ladies’s WorldTour strikes into the height of the Spring Classics, and behind Paris-Roubaix Femmes the Tour of Flanders represents the top of the season.
As common, the race will deal with us to ascents of the famed Koppenberg, Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg over the race’s 163km route.
Final 12 months, Lotte Kopecky made historical past as the primary Belgian back-to-back winner of the Tour of Flanders in a dominant show, however that definitely does not make the race a foregone conclusion.
The sphere of this 12 months’s twenty first version has a putting energy in depth, and so listed here are Cyclingnews’ key favourites within the ladies’s race.
Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the Spring Classics- together with reporting, breaking information and evaluation from the Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders and extra. Discover out extra.
SD Worx arrives on the Tour of Flanders with a dream group that features World Champion and two-time defending champion Lotte Kopecky and Tour de France winner Demi Vollering. The pair completed first and second in Oudenaarde final 12 months.
Kopecky, additionally Belgium’s double nationwide champion, could be very a lot the centrepiece of the cobbled Traditional, the place crowds will undoubtedly line the steep hellingen, cobblestone sectors and end line straightaway simply to observe her compete within the nation’s most prized one-day race.
Again-to-back wins at Strade Bianche and Nokere Koerse, together with a pair of second locations at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Trofeo Alfredo Binda, and fourth at Dwars door Vlaanderen, have proven that Kopecky is on monitor to reaching her peak kind on the proper time forward of her targetted Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
Vollering is way more of a wildcard this 12 months, having solely raced at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (sixth) and Strade Bianche (third), however she arrives recent off of an altitude coaching camp and able to compete at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Tour of Flanders adopted by the Ardennes Classics, of which she gained all three final 12 months.
Collectively, Kopecky and Vollering kind a tough-to-beat duo. The group additionally consists of 2020 Tour of Flanders winner Chantal van den Broek-Blaak and European Champion Mischa Bredewold. With a group this highly effective, the Tour of Flanders is SD Worx’s race to lose.
Marianne Vos’ glowing profession palmares, Spring Classics expertise, latest successful dash at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the place she beat Lotte Kopecky in Ninvoe, and her victory at Dwars door Vlaanderen make her one of many favourites for the Tour of Flanders victory.
The multiple-time cross-discipline World Champion has gained so many races throughout her profession; in reality, there are only a few races that she hasn’t gained. Her final victory on the Tour of Flanders was again in 2013 when she beat Ellen van Dijk, Emma Johansson, and Elisa Longo Borghini in a breakaway dash in Oudenaarde.
Vos is a significant participant throughout the cobbled Classics, and we will anticipate that her purpose is to peak via Dwars door Vlaanderen, a race she gained, into the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
Fem van Empel has recovered from a massively profitable cyclocross marketing campaign, throughout which she gained a second consecutive world title, and is now turning her consideration to the Spring Classics, the place she offers Visma-Lease a Bike a possible second card to play on the Tour of Flanders.
Van Empel was anticipated to make her 2024 highway season debut at Gent-Wevelgem, however she did not begin the race. The group stated she wasn’t fairly but prepared to begin the season, however she remains to be on the roster for Tour of Flanders. Though a podium on the greatest one-day Classics of the season could be a tricky ask, Van Empel is one to observe nonetheless.
Lidl-Trek additionally strains up with a robust group that features the ‘two Elisas’: Elisa Longo Borghini and Elisa Balsamo. Of the pair, Longo Borghini will seemingly be the one to observe on the Tour of Flanders.
The Italian Champion gained the Tour of Flanders in 2015, and she or he completed third final 12 months behind Kopecky and Vollering in Oudenaarde. This 12 months, Longo Borghini has completed third at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, second at Strade Bianche and gained Trofeo Oro in Euro. Though she completed thirty third on the latest Gent-Wevelgem, her teammate Elisa Balsamo was second. She was additionally not too long ago within the decisive transfer and completed sixth at Dwars door Vlaanderen, the place her teammate Shirin van Anrooij was second behind Vos.
The pair work nicely collectively and help each other on the various terrain of the Spring Classics. The flatter races have a tendency to raised go well with Balsamo, and the tougher terrain shifts the goal towards Longo Borghini.
Balsamo has had an impressive begin to this season with wins at Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Brugge-De Panne, and second locations at Ronde van Drenthe and Gent-Wevelgem.
The group even have a robust roster that features Lizzie Deignan, Lucinda Model, Shirin van Anrooij and Lauretta Hanson.
Kasia Niewiadoma, the gravel World Champion, is all the time a contender for the Spring Classics, and she or he has as soon as once more proven her early-season strengths with a seventh at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and fourth at Strade Bianche.
She was devastated by her lead to Siena, a testomony to how a lot she loves that Italian one-day race and what number of occasions she has been so near victory: 4 occasions on the rostrum and 9 occasions within the prime 10.
On the Tour of Flanders, Niewiadoma has additionally completed within the prime 10 on six events. Her highest place was final 12 months, the place she completed fifth within the breakaway dash behind Kopecky, Vollering, Longo Borghini and Silvia Persico.
Canyon-SRAM additionally brings a robust group with a number of choices, together with Chloé Dygert, Elisa Chabbey and Soraya Paladin. Dygert, the person time trial World Champion, returned to the Spring Classics after an early season harm at Brugge-De Panne, the place she completed a promising sixth place, and she or he was then thirty sixth at Gent-Wevelgem.
She competed in only one different Classics occasion throughout her four-year time period with Canyon-SRAM, driving on the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2022. Nonetheless, she suffered from leg ache following that race after which spent 14 months recovering from quite a lot of well being points.
Will probably be fascinating to see her progress on the Tour of Flanders and because the season continues towards the Paris Olympics, the place she is going to deal with each highway and monitor.
One of many peloton’s most versatile riders, Pfeiffer Georgi, is each Charlotte Kool‘s trusted lead-out within the sprints and Group dsm-firmenich PostNL’s most respected card to play within the Spring Classics.
She had a breakthrough season final 12 months, successful Traditional Brugge-De Panne, the British Nationwide Championships for the second time in her profession, and Binche-Chimay-Binche.
She’s had a robust begin to this season, too, taking third at Omloop van het Hageland and fifth at Trofeo Alfredo Binda.
On the Tour of Flanders, Georgi is powerful sufficient to each ignite a profitable breakaway and be a part of the successful entrance group. A quick finisher in her personal proper, look ahead to the British Champion to be among the many late-race contenders into Oudenaarde.
Multi-discipline rider Puck Pieterse wasn’t truly anticipating to be racing the Tour of Flanders when she began her highway block, however given how nicely it has gone, extending just a bit to incorporate the cobbled Traditional turned an irresistible proposition.
The rider, who will probably be concentrating on the Olympic Video games on the mountain bike, did simply a few UCI highway races final season. Even then, she got here away with a fifth at Strade Bianche.
This 12 months, nevertheless, she has ramped it up one other degree. The Dutch rider’s barely prolonged block has included six races, 5 prime tens, and two podiums. Provided that run, there may be each cause for the rider, who will deal with the mountain bike after Dwars door Vlaanderen, the place she completed fifth, and Tour of Flanders, to hold excessive hopes for Sunday.
“With the way it’s going now, in fact, you need to dream of the very best, and I believe we’ve got a extremely good group,” she instructed Cyclingnews. “We labored rather well collectively right here at Gent-Wevelgem, so I believe even successful is feasible.”
The Ronde is a race the place Arlenis Sierra has completed within the prime ten previously two editions, and her begin to the season signifies that the Cuban Movistar rider is heading into the race with some strong kind.
The 31-year-old’s block of Spanish racing yielded two second locations, and she or he has additionally taken a robust fifth at Nokere Koerse and sixth at Gent Wevelgem. She has but to say a win this season or at one of many massive Ladies’s WorldTour Classics via her profession, so she is maybe extra of an extended shot than a favorite. Nonetheless, notably on condition that she received fourth in 2022, the rostrum appears a risk.
Sierra can be not the one choice at Movistar, which remains to be in search of its first Ladies’s WorldTour win of the season. Emma Norsgaard has been ramping up towards the spring and has to this point delivered some promising outcomes.
The 24-year-old’s marketing campaign began with an eleventh at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and fifth at Omloop van het Hageland and likewise included seventh place at Nokere Koerse and Brugge-De Panne.
Final 12 months, Silvia Persico was only one spot off the rostrum on the Tour of Flanders after coming in for a dash behind winner Kopecky with a bunch of seven. Then she was one of many riders her rivals within the group have been watching carefully because the quick end approached.
Little doubt the 26-year-old will probably be decided, if the chance arises once more, to go at the least one higher this time. The 2023 De Brabantse Pijl winner is dialling again her GC ambitions this 12 months, given her Olympic focus, and concentrating on one-day occasions and phases as a substitute, so this might assist her ship on the Ronde.
To date this month her finest outcomes are an eighth at Trofeo Oro and Trofeo Alfredo Binda. Dwars door Vlaanderen might additionally present one other indication of whether or not she is able to ramp it up one other degree on the Tour of Flanders.
There are additionally different choices for the group, with Chiara Consonni having confirmed a robust pressure in March, stepping as much as the rostrum first at Drentse Acht van Westerveld with a second after which most not too long ago at Gent-Wevelgem with a 3rd.
On prime of that, there was a fourth at Brugge De Panne and seventh at Dwars door Vlaanderen, so the rider clearly is delivering the pace wanted to make a mark on the finish of an extended, onerous day of racing.
The previous cyclocross world champion has shifted into her new group, Lotto Dstny Girls, and instantly began with a slew of outcomes inside the highest ten; in reality, Thalita de Jong’s worst results of the 12 months to this point is fifteenth.
The 30-year-old’s outcomes additionally embody second locations at GP Oetingen and on a stage of the Tour de Normandie, plus claimed the factors classification. At her newest race, Gent Wevelgem, it was an eighth.
De Jong will probably be driving her fifth Tour of Flanders in 2024, but it surely’s been three years since she final lined up. She hasn’t completed within the prime 40 on the race earlier than, however this season, because the senior member of the Belgian squad, she appears to be flourishing, so something appears doable.
Ruby Roseman-Gannon had a transparent goal on the spring Classics and would have been a key contender for the group at Tour of Flanders, however after a tough crash at Nokere Koerse, she was left driving via the road in eleventh place with enormous streaks of blood operating down each legs.
The Australian champion hasn’t raced since and posted on Instagram over the weekend that “I’m nonetheless unable to experience and subsequently I’ll miss the remainder of the Flemish classics.”
Nonetheless, the group has different choices, one apparent one being Letizia Paternoster. She is nice on brief explosive climbs and brings her track-honed flip of pace to the dash.
The Italian has proven her energy this month with a fourth at Ronde van Drenthe and a 3rd at Dwars door Vlaanderen, and she or he additionally has historical past via this patch. The rider hit the rostrum of Gent-Wevelgem in 2019, and when she joined the Australian squad final season, she delivered a trio of prime tens final 12 months, coming sixth at Omloop van het Hageland, ninth at Ronde van Drenthe and tenth at Nokere Koerse.
Her Tour of Flanders debut additionally got here in 2023, although it was an 81st place end, nevertheless with one other 12 months of expertise below the belt and Roseman-Gannon injured hopes are more likely to be a lot greater this 12 months.
Honorable mentions
- Kristen Faulkner (EF Training-Cannondale)
- Maria Giuliani Confalonieri (Uno-X)
- Vittoria Guazzini (FDJ-Suez)
