Opening weekend is finally here, and for the women’s peloton, that means back-to-back races with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday, February 25 and Omloop van het Hageland on Sunday, February 26, in Belgium.
The road racing season is already well underway with the 2023 Women’s WorldTour having begun at the Tour Down Under and Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in Australia. Teams then traveled to race at the UAE Tour Women and onto Spain for the European start at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana.
Now that the riders and teams have experienced pre-season training camps and have had a chance to test their racing legs, opening weekend will bring the level or racing up a notch ahead of one of the most important campaigns of the season, the Spring Classics.
Cyclingnews highlights six of the biggest talking points ahead of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Learn more about the Women’s WorldTour in Cyclingnews’ definitive guide for 2023. and join Cyclingnews for live coverage of the 2023 Spring Classics, and check in after each race for our full reports, results, galleries, news and features.
Omloop hits the big-time on the WorldTour
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad has been a historical staple of opening weekend, a treasured kick-off to the Spring Classics. It has been part of the top-tier of events on the men’s calendar since 2016, although this year marks its debut on the Women’s WorldTour.
The UCI announced Omloop Het Nieuwsblad had secured an upgrade and would join four new races on the top-tier women’s calendar this year, along with the women’s Tour Down Under, Tour de Suisse and the newly-launched UAE Tour.
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad’s upgrade was all a part organiser Flanders Classics’ plan called Closing the Gap, which aimed to bring visibility and equality to its events from the bottom up. The goal was to create quality across all six women’s and men’s Spring Classics; Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Gent-Wevelgem, Dwars door Vlaanderen, Tour of Flanders, Scheldeprijs and Brabantse Pijl. And the three main areas of focus were of live TV coverage by improving the broadcasting times for the women’s races to finish after the men’s in prime time, classification on the international calendar and prize money.
Dwars door Vlaanderen was denied top-tier status, and it, along with De Brabantse Pijl, is part of the Pro Series this year. Scheldeprijs remains a 1.1 event to give opportunities for the Continental teams to…
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