Eight days in Spain. A dramatic team time trial. A few sprint stages. A few summit finishes. A lot of crashes, and a restoring of some measure of order with Demi Vollering’s red jersey win. That was fun.
With the summer season now fully underway, here are a few things we learned about the state of play in the ladies’ pro pelton:
- Demi Vollering is going to be OK. Last seasons the Dutch champion swept the Ardennes Classics won the Tour, World’s, and Strade Bianchi too. SD Worx is still packed with massive talent, e.g. Marlen Reusser, Lotte Kopecky, Mischa Bredewold, Christine Majerus, Lorena Wiebes and of course, Vollering. They have the riders to win any race they enter. But they have not had the top step of the podium to themselves this year. Not close. And the disappointment has been palpable in nearly every post-race interview they’ve conducted. Possibly, they are victims of their own success, though. In a lot of races their tactics have been haphazard and incoherent, as if they don’t think they need to ride smart to win. Ultimately, they’ll straighten it out. Vollering has won the Vuelta. She’s the best climber in the world. It’s going to be okay.
- Marianne Vos isn’t nearly done yet. She’s 36-years-old. She’s won more than 250 races, and she just tucked the Vuelta’s green jersey into her memory chest. Pro cycling hasn’t known a better all-rounder (note: She has 8 CX World Championships to go long with her long list of road wins), but as she inches toward 40, one has to wonder how much more she’s got to give. The answer, based on this Vuelta, is plenty. Smart, humble and persistently cheerful, she’s a fine ambassador for women’s cycling too.
- There are more real contenders than ever. Last season, race previews alluded to the potential of a lot of talented racers, like Elisa Longo-Borghini, Kasia Niewiadoma and Kristen Faulkner, but SD Worx seemed to sweep everything in its path. This year, the aforementioned and many more are stepping up, winning races and stages, and making the whole endeavour feel like more of a contest. It’s as if both riders and teams have taken their game up a notch, and it makes the story of women’s Elite racing much more fun to follow.
I don’t really love when the major men’s and women’s races overlap, as this has done with the men’s Giro, but that’s mostly because I need some days when I don’t have to watch bike racing. If you’re partial to the women’s World Tour, then you’ve got a handful of minor races before the Tour in early June.
