Girls’s WorldTour racing resumes after the Spanish trio of races with the peloton heading to Britain for the RideLondon Classique and revamped Tour of Britain Girls earlier than closing again in on Grand Tour racing on the Giro in July and Tour in August.
Beginning with RideLondon this Friday, Might 24, it stays a three-day race because it has been since its post-COVID-19 pandemic resumption in and round Essex and London with a parcours greatest suited to the quickest sprinters.
It provides all groups an important alternative to completely take a look at the bounds of their lead-out trains up the long-lasting Mall in London and can permit among the sooner riders to seek out their approach onto the highest step general of a WorldTour stage race.
Each earlier winners of the race within the three-day format we all know might be current on the 2023 race; Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) and Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL). As former teammates at DSM, Kool was Wiebes’ final lead-out rider, comparable to in 2022 when she took the general victory in London, so that they know one another very nicely.
They’ve come to be shut rivals in sprints for the previous two seasons however we haven’t seen the battle a lot in 2024 resulting from sickness for Kool so this race ought to present not less than two assured alternatives on levels 1 and three.
Whereas Wiebes would be the heavy favorite for general victory with Kool proper behind her, there might be loads of different high sprinters and punchy riders hoping to beat the highest ladies’s workforce on the planet, SD Worx-Protime.
Cyclingnews runs the ruler over the potential contenders forward of Friday’s three-stage Girls’s WorldTour race.
Whereas she’s added nice versatility to her abilities over the previous two seasons, Lorena Wiebes has maintained her standing as the highest sprinter within the ladies’s professional peloton since becoming a member of SD Worx-Protime on the finish of the 2022 season.
Her final race on the Vuelta a Burgos Féminas didn’t begin with success when she was pressured into evasive motion from a crash within the opening stage dash, which was gained by Lotta Henttala (EF Schooling-Cannondale), but it surely didn’t take her lengthy to bounce again. Wiebes dominated the stage 3 dash with a clear run on the line, opening up fairly the hole behind her.
SD Worx-Protime didn’t participate within the RideLondon Classique final yr so Wiebes could not defend her title from 2022. In that version, she gained all three levels in dominant trend using for DSM and took the general and factors classifications with it.
She’ll have the added bonus of World Champion Lotte Kopecky appearing as lead-out in her first return to the UK racing since she claimed the rainbow jersey in Glasgow. The Belgian has mixed brilliantly with Wiebes prior to now two seasons all through the Classics and Tour de France Femmes. Ought to the hillier stage 2 Maldon end be too powerful for Wiebes, which is unlikely, Kopecky is greater than succesful and provides the Dutch squad one other dash possibility.
2023 RideLondon winner Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) will supply up stiff competitors to Wiebes’ standing as favorite as a high sprinter in her personal proper. Kool stepped up from being her compatriot’s final lead-out to DSM’s new chief in 2023 and burst into high type with wins on the UAE Tour and La Vuelta earlier than taking up RideLondon and successful general.
She couldn’t match Wiebes’ complete domination of the race with the hat-trick of wins as a crash on stage 2 into Maldon noticed Chloe Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) return to type with a victory, however because it was within the remaining 3km, Kool maintained her lead heading into the London stage.
Kool is but to take a win in 2024 regardless of her nice high pace as sickness hampered the early portion of her schedule. However the RideLondon Classique will supply up the proper place to get again within the wins in opposition to the perfect competitors.
She’ll equally have a robust lead-out within the type of Pfeiffer Georgi, Franziska Koch, Daniek Hengeveld, Megan Jastrab and Rachele Barbieri.
Chiara Consonni (UAE ADQ) arrives as some of the constant quick finishers within the ladies’s peloton to the RideLondon Classique, simply off the again of two wins in latest weeks from the Gran Premio della Liberazione and GP Eco-Struct.
She’s having 2024 to date and hasn’t been too far off Wiebes at races such because the UAE Tour and Gent-Wevelgem, so with the fitting positioning, she may definitely problem the dominant Dutchwoman to the road.
Alongside Consonni might be gifted compatriot Eleanora Gasparrini, who was fourth general ultimately yr’s RideLondon and took dwelling the youth classification after two spectacular top-five finishes behind the sooner, purer sprinters. Her punch was key to contesting the uphill Colchester end and hillier day into the seaside city Maldon.
Additionally seeking to tackle the likes of Wiebes and Kool might be one other Italian on high type, Letizia Paternoster (Liv AlUla Jayco), coming again to racing after a really profitable Classics marketing campaign.
The 24-year-old confirmed nice punch all through the Belgian Classics, taking third at Dwars door Vlaanderen and ninth on the Tour of Flanders, displaying she has far more to her recreation than only a good dash.
Paternoster hasn’t competed at RideLondon since 2019, when it was nonetheless a one-day race the place she was fifth as a younger rider behind winner Wiebes. This time round, she’ll even have the expertise of Georgia Baker alongside her within the finishes.
Baker’s presence provides Liv AlUla Jayco a double dash possibility for all of the finals and the Australian confirmed good type lately with a runner-up end on stage 4 of La Vuelta Femenina.
Recent off the again of a second-place end behind Wiebes on the Vuelta a Burgos, Clara Copponi (Lidl-Trek) might be excessive on confidence coming into the RideLondon Classique as she leads Lidl-Trek within the sprints.
With high quick finisher Elisa Balsamo out of motion resulting from a latest crash and profitable surgical procedure, the French rider, who signed for Lidl-Trek in 2024, is a good possibility. Her teammate Lizzie Deignan could be increased up this listing on another event as a former podium finisher at RideLondon from 2023 however she’s nonetheless on the best way again to type and full use of her arm after breaking her elbow on the Tour of Flanders.
If Deignan is feeling good, nonetheless, she may undoubtedly contest the win into Maldon and can assist Copponi within the sprints on dwelling roads. Copponi has additionally had success in Britain earlier than having gained a stage of the Girls’s Tour in 2022, which began in Colchester, the end location of stage 1 of this race.
