Women's Cycling Weekly issue 61
A weekly curation of women's cycling news and content straight to your inbox
Hello! Welcome to Women’s Cycling Weekly issue 61 🚴♀️
Flanders seems like ages ago now but what. a. race. I know that I probably apply the same hyperbole to every race, especially for the Classics, but seeing Kopecky cross the line in the Belgian colours in front of an enormous crowd…goosebumps.
No offence to Amstel Gold but I don’t see it topping it (although I’d gladly be proven wrong) especially with no Marianne Vos to defend 😢. Paris Roubaix Femmes, however, might just give it a run for its money and, dear reader, I will be on the ground!
Away from WorldTour racing, a huge issue in women’s cycling this week has been questions around the inclusion of trans women in women’s racing. I’m not going to write anything more about it here today as we already spoke quite extensively about it on Freewheeling and I clarified my position on Twitter.
We would, however, like to extend the support and solidarity of WCW to Emily Bridges.
News 📰
The organisers of this weekend’s Amstel Gold Race have confirmed that the men’s and women’s races will have an equal prize purse of €40,000, with €16,000 for the winner.
The Tour Down Under will return in January 2023 after two years of absence.
In the gravel world, the new Life Time Grand Prix gets underway this weekend, featuring riders like recently-retired road racers Ruth Winder and Amber Neben.
23-year-old Lorena Wiebes racked up her 40th career win by taking victory at Scheldeprijs on Wednesday.
The Women’s Tour have revealed more stage details ahead of the June race, the latest addition being stage 3 in Gloucestershire.
British Cycling’s Board of Directors has voted in favour of an immediate suspension of its transgender policy.
Results 🏆
Road
Tour of Flanders
Lotte Kopecky (SDW)
Annemiek van Vleuten (MOV)
Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (SDW)
Scheldeprijs
Lorena Wiebes (DSM)
Chiara Consonni (VAL)
Rachele Barbieri (LIV)
Upcoming Races 📆
Road
10th April: Amstel Gold Race (1.WWT)
Starts at 10.40 CET, finishes ~14.00 CET
Watch on Eurosport/GCN from 13.00 CET
Startlist here
Preview here
13th April: Brabantse Pijl (1.1)
Starts at 11.00 CET, finishes ~14.20 CET
Watch on Eurosport/GCN from 11.15 CET
Startlist here
MTB
8th-10th April: 🇧🇷 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Petrópolis - XCC & XCO #1
Friday 21.30 CET short track
Saturday 21.30 CET XCO U23
Sunday 16.20 CET XCO elite
Watch on RedBull TV
Read 🗞️
A women’s Tour of Flanders gallery.
A really good interview with Kasia Niewiadoma from Rouleur issue 110.
“From pumps to cleats: Former ballerina Nathalie Eklund on her Olympic racing dream.”
Some bike details for the tech lovers: Kasia Niewiadoma’s Canyon Aeroad. Elisa Balsamo’s world champ Trek Emonda. And Annemiek van Vleuten’s Canyon Aeroad.
The Tour of Flanders wasn’t hard enough for Annemiek van Vleuten. 🤯
Rachel Jary speaks to Natascha Knaven of NXTG Racing on development in women’s cycling.
“Lotte Kopecky wants Tour of Flanders victory to inspire young girls to dream.”
Listen 🎧
On this week’s Freewheeling we chewed over a spectacular edition of Flanders plus the aforementioned discussion around trans women.
Fun fact
That’s all 👋
Thanks for reading Women’s Cycling Weekly!
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Until next time!