Reporting from the desert 🇦🇪
+ lots to watch over the weekend! 📺
Hello! Welcome to Women’s Cycling Weekly! 🚴♀️
Paid subscribers will know this already but I’m (Amy) in Abu Dhabi this week covering the women’s UAE Tour. If you don’t already subscribe then make sure you do if you want to catch some extra bits including an exclusive interview with Kristen Faulkner coming soon!
PLUS if you want to see some BTS stories then check out our Insta @womenscyclingweekly
Meanwhile, congrats to the winner of our giveaway for a paid subscription!
Lots to get stuck into this week so enjoy! And shoutout to Tildz for putting this issue together 🫶
Amy x
News 📰
Annemiek van Vleuten has revealed what races she’ll be doing this year as her final season. As expected, it’s a greatest hits list of Monuments, Grand Tours and the World Championships.
ASO’s Christian Prudhomme has confirmed that the Tour de France Femmes will move away from its end of July dates in 2024 due to clashing with the Paris Olympics. It is yet to be confirmed where in the calendar it may move to.
Despite being big (and soon-approaching) features of the season, we’re still in the dark about the routes of both the Vuelta Femenina and the Giro Donne, which has drawn criticism this week from FDJ boss Stephen Delcourt.
In very sad news from Spain, Team Sopela’s neo pro Estela Domínguez was killed by a driver whilst training yesterday afternoon. She was 18 years old and set to make her professional debut this season.
Read 🗞️
Tilda had a long chat with Lizzy Banks about coming back from two successive years of injury and illness and how she’s becoming a professional cyclist again.
It may not have worked out on stage 1, but SD Worx are showing off their new sprint train built for Lorena Wiebes at this week’s UAE Tour.
Speaking of Wiebes, she’s spoken about how she’ll be aiming for ‘quality over quantity’ in terms of wins this season.
How Anna van der Breggen is finding new sources of satisfaction in her retirement and role as sports director at SD Worx.
FDJ-SUEZ know that the key to winning in 2023 is to beat, mainly, Annemiek van Vleuten - and this is how they plan to do it.
Everyone’s thinking about how to beat AvV apparently, here’s Liane Lippert’s take: “I hope others change their mindset”.
Originally in Rouleur last year, Amy spoke to professional photographer Jojo Harper about balancing family life with work and how mothers don’t have to choose between the two.
Watch 📺
Quite a few bits to feast your eyes on this week!
First up, Puck’s GoPro laps from Hoogerheide (last CX laps of the season 😢💔)
An insight into neo pro life with Zoe Backstedt:
Some pre-season BTS with Trek-Segafredo:
Plus we LOVE this from Liv about making friends and staying connected through mountain biking <3
Listen 🎧
Chloé Dygert spoke to Bobby and Jens about her recent health battles and her ambitions for the next few years.
Results 🏆
Road
Vuelta CV Feminas
Floortje Mackaij (MOV)
Liane Lippert (MOV)
Nikola Nosková (ZAF)
UAE Tour
Stage 1: Charlotte Kool (DSM)
Stage 2: Lorena Wiebes (SDW)
Current overall:
Lorena Wiebes (SDW)
Charlotte Kool (DSM) s.t.
Chiara Consonni (UAD) +10
New Zealand National Road Championships 🇳🇿
Elite TT:
Georgia Williams (TIB)
Georgia Perry
Sharlotte Lucas
U23 TT:
Ally Wollaston (AGS)
Henrietta Christie (HPW)
Ella Wyllie (DRP)
(A little fact - Ally Wollaston actually went faster than Georgia Williams on the same course, same length, same conditions - should she have been given the elite title? 🤔)
CX
🌈 UCI Cyclocross World Championships, Hoogerheide 🇳🇱
Juniors:
Isabella Holmgren 🇨🇦
Ava Holmgren 🇨🇦
Célia Gery 🇫🇷
U23:
Shirin van Anrooij 🇳🇱
Zoe Backstedt 🇬🇧
Kristyna Zemanová 🇨🇿
Elite:
Fem van Empel 🇳🇱
Puck Pieterse 🇳🇱
Lucinda Brand 🇳🇱
Track
🇪🇺 UEC European Championships, Grenchen 🇨🇭
Scratch: 🥇 Maria Martins 🥈 Eukene Larrarte 🥉 Daria Pikulik
Team sprint: 🥇 Germany 🥈 Great Britian 🥉 Netherlands
Elimination: 🥇 Lotte Kopecky 🥈 Valentine Fortin 🥉 Maike van der Duin
Team pursuit: 🥇 Great Britain 🥈 Italy 🥉 France
Upcoming races 📆
Road
9th-12th February: UAE Tour (WWT)
Startlist here
Live on Eurosport/GCN+
CX
11th February: Superprestige Middelkerke
Live on Eurosport/GCN+ from 13.35 CET
12th February: X2O Trofee Lille - Krawatencross
Live on Eurosport/GCN+ from 13.45 CET
Track
🇪🇺 UEC European Championships, Grenchen 🇨🇭
Live on Eurosport/GCN+
Schedule, startlists and results here
Friday fun🕺
We’re not crying, you’re crying
This is just the Puck and Fem section now, sorry
That’s all 👋
Thanks for reading Women’s Cycling Weekly! 💘
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Amy and Tilda x
Just read Tilda’s piece on Lizzy Banks for Cyclingnews. First and foremost, it is excellently written, in its handling of concussion and COVID, straight facts, relating to general population as well, and on what we don’t know (I’m a retired MD with cycling-related traumatic brain injury). I also learned Tilda’s full name!
In addition, Lizzy lives in France just outside of Geneva, as I do and seeing her efforts on Strava on our local routes has been encouraging.
And why did they not mention WCW in Tilda’s bio in the cycling news bio? 😄🤷♂️