Until this year, the Giro d’Italia Donne took the top spot when it came to stage racing in the Women’s WorldTour. The race’s long history, 33 editions, and an offering of 10 days of racing made it the most prestigious event on the calendar. With the advent of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, however, the Giro now has competition.
Despite the Giro’s longevity the prestige of the Tour de France, and with the races just two weeks apart, means that many of the top riders opted to sit out the Italian race in favour of the Tour, or indeed, in favour of altitude training ahead of the Tour.
Some, however – including all three riders from the GC podium at the Giro Donne – have taken on the task of racing both Grand Tours and their form at the Giro gives us a good indication of how they might feature at the Tour de France Femmes.
As race preparations are come to an end and the racing begins on Sunday in Paris, Cyclingnews takes a closer look at who is on course for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
While some of the key Tour de France Femmes GC riders opted to sit the Giro Donne out, arguably the biggest favourite for the win, Annemiek van Vleuten has decided to ‘do the double’.
The Movistar leader had a strong start to the season – albeit without the dominant performances we have become used to seeing – winning Omloop het Nieuwsblad and taking a myriad of podiums before taking the win at Liège-Bastogne-Liège too. Then, while preparing for the block of Spanish stage races in May, the 39-year-old crashed on a mountain bike ride, breaking her wrist in the process.
As a result, the Giro was Van Vleuten’s first race since Liège, and the time away from the peloton doesn’t seem to have come at any detriment to her form. The Giro is a race at which Van Vleuten thrives, the long climbs and tough parcours that the race usually presents facilitate the hard racing that the Dutchwoman revels in and has led her to take two overall titles before this year.
Sure enough, at this year’s race Van Vleuten showed her considerable strength to take a third overall win with a margin of 1:52 ahead of FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope’s Marta Cavalli. While a few of her main GC rivals such as Demi Vollering were not at the race, Van Vleuten’s performance at the Giro confirmed that she will be hard to beat in France.
It isn’t only in the mountains that riders need to watch out for, however. While we…
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