The ladies’s highway race will conclude the highway biking occasions on the 2024 Olympic Video games on Sunday, August 4 in Paris earlier than consideration shifts towards observe racing on the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Nationwide Velodrome from August 5-11.
The ultimate highway biking occasion will begin and end within the shadow of the Eiffel Tower on the Pont d’Iéna that crosses the Seine between the Trocadéro Gardens and the Champ de Mars.
The race will cowl 158km, with 1,700 metres of climbing and 9 named ascents, after which end on three difficult circuits in central Paris that go to the enduring Montmartre space of town.
The riders to look at for these Olympic Video games are additionally these well-suited to the Spring Classics, such because the Tour of Flanders and Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
Cyclingnews highlights the principle contenders for the ladies’s highway race on the Olympic Video games.
Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the 2024 Olympic Video games – together with breaking information and evaluation reported by our journalists on the bottom from each occasion throughout highway, mountain bike, observe and BMX racing because it occurs and extra. Discover out extra.
Paris Olympics ladies’s highway race contenders
Lotte Kopecky arrived in Paris aiming to win three medals in her focused occasions: particular person time trial, highway race, and Omnium on the observe.
Her efficiency within the time trial, which opened the Video games final Saturday, suffered resulting from a mid-race crash on the rain-soaked and slippery parcours. She ended up ending sixth place, 1:56 behind Australia’s gold medal winner Grace Brown.
She now has two extra possibilities on the medals, with the subsequent alternative within the highway race on Sunday. Hopefully, she has recovered from the time trial accident and can have the ability to carry out at her finest in a highway race that’s well-suited to her energy and talent as an all-rounder.
Kopecky is the reigning World Champion on this occasion, having secured her title on the Glasgow Worlds final summer season, together with world titles within the Elimination Race and Factors Race, and bronze within the Omnium.
Her successful performances at Strade Bianche, Paris-Roubaix, and second total on the Giro d’Italia Girls point out that she is at her finest type for these Olympic Video games. And as a two-time Tour of Flanders champion, look ahead to Kopecky to set the tone for the ladies’s highway race in Paris.
If Kopecky is the out-right favorite to win the gold medal within the ladies’s highway race in Paris, then Lorena Wiebes is her largest rival.
The pair are usually SD Worx-Protime teammates within the WorldTour. The tough-to-beat duo has claimed many 1-2 victories all through the final two seasons, which means they know one another’s strengths and weaknesses very effectively.
In Paris, they are going to be racing in opposition to each other and it is going to be fascinating to see how they compete amongst their respective nationwide groups.
Whereas Kopecky typically performs extra of a wildcard in her highway races, Wiebes is usually in tune with a robust lead-out that helps place her for dash wins. She comes into this occasion recent off of 5 stage wins and the general title victory on the Baloise Women Tour and he or she stated she would spend time fine-tuning her type at dwelling earlier than heading to Paris.
Wiebes will spearhead a Dutch crew which additionally contains Tour de France winner Demi Vollering, who may additionally win a medal in Paris, former multi-time world champion and Olympic champion Marianne Vos, and three-time time trial world champion Ellen van Dijk.
Nationwide coach Loes Gunnewijk confirmed the choice to nominate Wiebes because the crew chief, and whereas she is well-known as one of many peloton’s quickest sprinters, she can also be able to climbing with the perfect and taking part in techniques in a decisive breakaway.
If the race comes all the way down to a diminished group dash, and the Dutch crew are all current on the entrance, Wiebes can have the perfect lead-out within the discipline, and a transparent likelihood on the gold medal.
Chloé Dygert, reigning time trial and Particular person Pursuit world champion, additionally got here into these Olympic Video games aiming for gold medals within the time trial, highway race and on the observe however a crash within the rain-soaked time trial final weekend meant that she needed to accept the bronze medal.
Regardless of crashing on the identical leg that she injured in a horrific crash on the Imola Worlds in 2020, Dygert stated she is going to proceed on in these Video games and take a look at her finest within the highway race on Sunday earlier than turning her consideration to the observe the place she is going to compete within the Group Pursuit.
No stranger to the Olympic Video games, Dygert has gained silver and bronze medals within the Group Pursuit in 2016 Rio and 2021 Tokyo, respectively.
Within the highway race, Dygert is taken into account a darkish horse, lining up alongside her teammate and nationwide champion Kristen Faulkner, additionally a possible medal contender.
Nevertheless, Dygert has proven that when she is wholesome and never injured, she is a significant contender in one-day highway races. She completed fourth within the elite ladies’s highway race on the Yorkshire World Championships in 2019, the place she additionally gained her first elite time trial world title. Dygert has additionally been on the rostrum in levels on the Vuelta España Femenina, Giro d’Italia Girls, RideLondon, and was sixth this 12 months at Basic Brugge-De Panne.
Whereas her situation following the time trial continues to be considerably unknown, her skill to rise to the highest at key moments makes it onerous to strike her off the record of contenders for a medal within the ladies’s highway race.
Elisa Longo Borghini got here into this block of the season aiming for prime performances on the Giro d’Italia Girls, Olympic Video games and Tour de France Femmes. She has already gone above and past even her personal expectations, successful her first total title on the Italian Grand Tour in July.
On the Olympic Video games, Longo Borghini completed eighth within the particular person time trial. Whereas there was no medal, it could have supplied her a warm-up forward of Sunday’s highway race.
At all times bringing a tactical and aggressive model of racing to the one-day occasions, Longo Borghini will probably play a pivotal position within the consequence of the occasion; whether or not it comes all the way down to a diminished group or a breakaway, we will count on to see Longo Borghini preventing for the victory all the best way to the end line.
A winner of Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders (twice), Trofeo Alfredo Binda (twice) and Strade Bianche, and this 12 months she was additionally third at Flèche Wallonne and second at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Longo Borghini excels on each technical and punchy terrain, and the Paris course may play into her benefit.
The Italian crew can also be filled with energy, together with former world champion Elisa Balsamo, Silvia Persico, and Elena Cecchini. The Italians are identified for his or her cohesive racing – assume Leuven Worlds, the place Balsamo gained the rainbow jersey after a stellar crew efficiency – which may once more be what units them other than the opposite groups on the Video games.
The Australians opened the Olympic Video games precisely as that they had hoped, with Grace Brown successful the gold medal within the particular person time trial final weekend.
Brown might be a contender, too, for a medal within the highway race, particularly as this course seems to play into the palms of those that go well with the Spring Basic and the Ardennes Classics.
Brown had had a strong season, successful the time trial title on the Australian Championships after which taking victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, turning into the primary lady from Australia to win one in all biking’s Monuments.
She plans to retire on the finish of this season and, within the course of, is punctuating a glowing profession in skilled biking with the perfect outcomes of her profession.
The Australian crew additionally has one other contender in Ruby Roseman-Gannon. as whereas Brown typically grasps her finest outcomes by taking part in an attacking hand Roseman-Gannon gives an choice for a diminished bunch dash. She doesn’t outline herself as one of many world’s finest sprinters however says she has the power to place herself in the correct place close to the tip of a race for the very best outcome.
She is the reigning Australian highway champion and just lately secured her first victory on the WorldTour at Tour of Britain, outsprinting SD Worx teammates Christine Majerus, Lorena Wiebes and world champion Lotte Kopecky on the ultimate day.
She has recovered from an damage within the Spring Classics and appears able to compete for wins on the Olympic Video games and the Tour de France Femmes.
France’s gold-medal hopes are sitting on the shoulders of Juliette Labous at these Paris Olympic Video games. She was chosen to the crew alongside Audrey Cordon-Ragot and Victoire Berteau, whereas compatriot Évita Muzic missed out.
Labous is the French Champion and the nation’s prime rider on the earth rating and was the only real rider representing France within the ladies’s highway occasions on the Tokyo Olympics Video games. This season she has completed within the prime 10 at Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, fourth total at La Vuelta Femenina, third total at Itzulia Girls, and fifth total at each Tour de Suisse and Giro d’Italia Girls.
She opened the Olympic Video games with a fourth-place end within the particular person time trial, simply outdoors the medals, displaying that she is in nice type for this block of the season and is more likely to solely get stronger as she approaches the Tour de France Femmes.
Labous can have the house benefit for the highway race and has probably spent a while previewing the route with the nationwide crew, realizing each inch of the technical and difficult parcours. She may even have the assist of the roadside followers out to look at and cheer on their dwelling favourites.
Nice Britain has had a robust begin to the Olympic Video games as Anna Henderson claimed a silver medal within the ladies’s particular person time trial and Tom Pidcock gained gold within the males’s cross nation mountain bike occasion.
Henderson may even be a contender for the highway race, however the crew will probably assist British Champion Pfeiffer Georgi.
She has had robust performances within the one-day races this 12 months, ending fifth at Trofeo Binda, third at Paris-Roubaix and fourth at Amstel Gold Race. She was additionally fourth total on the Tour of Britain and second total on the Baloise Women Tour.
Lizzie Deignan is more likely to play a assist position at these Video games after a season marred by accidents following a crash on the Tour of Flanders this spring. Nevertheless, Deignan can by no means be counted out as a contender, as a former world champion and winner of the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Her expertise can also be more likely to be simply as invaluable an asset on the highway as her legs, on this race with no rider radio.
Austria comes into these Olympic Video games with the defending champion Anna Kiesenhofer, who took a shock victory within the highway race on the Tokyo Video games in 2021.
Kiesenhofer has had a robust season, successful double nationwide titles within the time trial and highway race, and can play a invaluable position for the Austrian crew within the highway race this time round.
It may appear unlikely that the peloton will enable Kiesenhofer to energy away from a breakaway in pursuit of gold once more; something can occur in bike racing and generally it is the skin contenders who take advantage of a chance in a race just like the Olympic Video games.
The crew additionally contains Christina Schweinberger, who had a breakout season in 2023 with memorable performances together with a 3rd within the time trial and fifth within the highway race on the Glasgow Worlds.
Her efficiency within the highway race on the World Championships was all of the extra spectacular as she completed with a range that broke off the entrance and fought to the end regardless of assault after assault from rivals Lotte Kopecky, Demi Vollering, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and Marlen Reusser.
One other efficiency like that would see her reaching for the medals in Paris.
Kim Cadzow is barely in her second full season of racing however she has already turned heads, successful the time trial title and ending second within the highway race on the New Zealand Championships and taking the general title at Trofeo Ponente in Rosa.
On the Ardennes Classics she was sixth place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège after which went on to take three top-10 stage finishes and tenth total on the Vuelta España Femenina, eighth total on the Tour de Suisse, however did not end the Giro d’Italia Girls the place the warmth took its toll.
Her performances led to a contract extension together with her commerce crew EF Training-Cannondale, so we will anticipate her gaining expertise and rising on the WorldTour over the subsequent two seasons.
She completed seventh within the time trial on the Olympic Video games and, given her season thus far, has a shot on the prime 10, too, within the highway race on Sunday.
Katarzyna Niewiadoma, the reigning Gravel World Champion, has constructed this season round efficiency on the Olympic Video games and the Tour de France Femmes.
She opted to not compete on the Giro d’Italia Girls and as a substitute completed her final block of racing on the Lotto Thüringen Women Tour, the place she completed seventh total.
Earlier within the 12 months, she was seventh at Omloop het Nieuwsblad, fourth at Strade Bianche, second at Tour of Flanders after which gained Flèche Wallonne, her first Classics victory since successful the Amstel Gold Race in 2019. She then took fifth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
That is her third Olympic Video games, however she says she is extra calm and targeted at this stage of her profession, and never as simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the Olympics as she was in Rio (sixth) and Tokyo (14th).
Niewiadoma is an all-rounder, and whereas she excels in climbing, she can also be a robust rider within the finals of massive one-day races. She strains up alongside Polish teammates Marta Lach and Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka with a superb likelihood at a prime 5 on Sunday.
Alison Jackson is a former Paris-Roubaix winner who appears to be like for alternatives in each bike race she begins and races on tenacity, excessive vitality and energy. She secured a stage win on the Vuelta España Femenina in Might, her prime outcome this 12 months, after negotiating her path to perfection by way of a messy crash marred dash.
Search for Jackson to commit 100% to a breakaway or be amongst a gaggle dash within the last. The course in Paris is demanding however not too difficult for a rider like Jackson. She completed thirty second within the highway race in Tokyo, however the Paris parcours go well with her strengths much better.
She strains up with nationwide highway champion Olivia Baril, who completed twentieth within the time trial final weekend in Paris.
When is the Paris Olympics ladies’s highway race?
The ladies’s highway race begins on Sunday, August 4 14:00 CET (8:00 EDT) and ends at round 18:45 (12:45 EDT). Discover out watch biking on the Paris Olympics
Paris Olympics ladies’s highway race begin record
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Paris Olympics ladies’s highway race route
How lengthy is the Paris Olympics ladies’s highway race
The ladies will race 158 kilometres, beginning on the Trocadéro and taking in a 110 kilometre loop earlier than returning to the centre of Paris for 2 18.4-kilometre ending circuits.
See additionally the total particulars of the Paris Olympics biking programs.
