Women's Cycling Weekly issue 30
A weekly curation of women's cycling news and content straight to your inbox
Hello! Welcome to Women’s Cycling Weekly issue 30 🚴♀️
I hope everyone’s had a great week.
You wait ages for a race and then about 200 national championship events come all at once! National championships season is a weird time, though: you have an onslaught of races — most of which aren’t broadcast — and then afterwards you have to readjust to who is wearing which jersey in the peloton (a struggle at the best of times for me). At least we’ll always recognise Christine Majerus, though.
Elsewhere, Zwift are showing that they mean it when it comes to equality by committing to sponsoring the new Tour de France Femmes for four years. Yes to long-term backing of races and an interesting juxtaposition of new vs old with the virtual platform working alongside ASO — sure to be a fascinating combo. Looking forward to the proof in the pudding.
Right, on with the show.
Thanks, as always, to CyclingTips for the support!
News 📰
Worth reiterating the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift sponsorship news. The virtual platform will be backing the race until 2025!
In other TdF-related news The InternationElles will be attempting the Guinness World Record and World Ultra Cycling Record for fastest 4 cyclist relay from Lands End to John O’Groats on 28th June 2021. Their goal is to complete the 1,349km in 48h. For more details see their social media.
After an excellent start to the season, Emma Norsgaard has signed a contract extension with her team, Movistar, until 2024.
Meanwhile, in other contract news, Jumbo-Visma announced their signing of former rower Amber Kraak for the rest of the season. She will make her debut with the team at the Dutch national championships this weekend.
After coming third in the MTB short track race in Leogang, Austria, Jolanda Neff broke her hand during the XCO race on Sunday. Despite the crash Neff still managed to take fourth. It’s unclear at this point how the injury will affect her for the Olympic Games next month.
Cédric Vasseur, General Manager of team Cofidis, revealed his plans for the women’s team in an interview with Cycling News. Vasseur outlined plans for the team to start off at WWT level, with a €1million budget, a 10-rider roster, and with plans to race the Tour de France Femmes and women’s Paris Roubaix.
US rider Kristen Faulkner was on the long list for Tokyo, but after not being selected for the final team she has filed a legal challenge.
Results 🏆
A list of some (not all) of the TT results:
France - Audrey Cordon Ragot
Netherlands - Anna van der Breggen
Switzerland - Marlen Reusser
Belgium - Lotte Kopecky
Denmark - Emma Norsgaard
Italy - Elisa Longo Borghini
Luxembourg - Christine Majerus
Norway - Katrine Aalerud
Czech Republic - Nikola Nosková
USA - Chloe Dygert
Poland - Karolina Karasiewicz
Spain - Mavi Garcia
Finland - Tiina Pohjalainen
MTB
At the MTB World Cup in Leogang, Austria Loana Lecomte took the XCO race win after claiming victory in the short track on the Friday. Jenny Rissveds took second with Laura Stigger in third. Jolanda Neff — despite breaking her hand in a crash earlier on in the race — took fourth. Highlights of the race can be found here.
Lorena Wiebes (DSM) won the SPAR Flanders Diamond Tour 1.1 on Sunday ahead of Chiara Consonni of Valcar Travel and Service and Amber van der Hulst of Parkhotel Valkenburg.
Over in the US at the Tulsa Tough crit races it was L39ION who dominated, with Skylar Schneider taking the opening race, Alexis Ryan the winning on the second day and Schneider taking the victory on the third day to seal the overall.
Upcoming Races 📅
As I mentioned last week, it’s simply not feasible to list every single country hosting a national championships race this weekend because ain’t nobody got time for that. So, with the exception of GB (forgot to mention that one last week) pretty much every European, a few South American countries, and the USA have national RR champs this weekend. I’ll report back on all that next time.
There are ways and means to watch some of the above races, too. Both the Spanish and French national road races are being broadcast on GCN+ and Eurosport. The Spanish RR is from 11:00-13:00 CEST and the French from 12:30-15:00 CEST. Elsewhere:
Am I lazy? Could I have typed that out myself? Answers on a postcard.
Once the national champs are over there’s the 2.1 Lotto Belgium Tour to look forward to from Tuesday 22nd - Friday 25th with one hour of live coverage daily on GCN+ and Eurosport. You can read a race preview here if you so wish! And there’s a rather patchy startlist here.
Read 🗞️
This gallery is wild.
Chloe Hosking on the long road to recovery after Covid.
I’ll be pre-ordering a copy of Eat, Bike, Cook asap after reading this article!
Kasia Niewiadoma on the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
An interview with Coryn Rivera on making the selection for Tokyo.
Riders to watch at La Course.
Watch 📺
We’ve all seen this by now, right?
Listen 🎧
Yes, it’s the Freewheeling Podcast. This week I was reunited with my microphone so for anyone who wanted to die at the sub-standard audio last time: it’s safe to return. Abby, Loren, and I chatted about the 2022 calendar and national championships, obvs.
Elsewhere in podcast land, I really enjoyed this conversation on the Rouleur podcast about The Cyclists’ Alliance mentorship programme and post-retirement life for riders — featuring Gracie Elvin and former full-time rider turned journalist Rachel Jary.
Also, the Canyon//SRAM 'Take the Lead’ podcast featuring the Barnes sisters, Hannah and Alice.
More of this sort of thing 🩸
Drops-Le Col are doing a bloody (sorry) great job of busting the taboo of talking about the menstrual cycle and are highlighting the importance of paying attention to it for athletes (and everyone).
That’s all 👋
Thanks for reading Women’s Cycling Weekly.
If you liked what you read today then maybe you fancy buying WCW a ‘coffee’ on Ko-Fi. A huge thanks to everyone who has done so already and no obligation whatsoever if you can’t!
Have a great weekend!
Until next time,
Amy x