Following on directly from the Tour of Chongming Island, the one-day Tour of Guangxi sees the teams who have made the trip to China battle it out for the final time in 2024, and achieve the honour of being the last Women’s World Tour winner of the season.
This is the fifth edition of the race, which began in 2017 but suffered a lengthy break due to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. The race returned to the schedule last season, and it was an edition contested by the sprinters, with Human Powered Health’s Daria Pikulik the most recent victor.
With fewer WWT teams at just four, the start list is composed primarily of twelve continental teams, with the addition of a Chinese national teams, but the faces will be familiar from the three-day Tour of Chongming, with most teams continuing with the same line-ups. However, where the sprinters came to the fore in pan-flat Chongming, Guangxi presents a different kind of challenge, and with a different route to 2023, could produce a result that doesn’t feature the fast women.
The race takes place on 20 October.
The Route – Nanning – Nanning (133.4km)
At 133.4km, the 2024 Tour of Guangxi is slightly shorter than last year’s edition, and with over 1,600m of altitude gain across the route, it’s also a much more challenging parcours, and one which should bring punchier riders to the fore, in a fight for the final WWT victory of the season.
Taking place over a lap of the southern area of the town of Nanning, the 27 kilometre-long circuit will be tackled five times in a clockwise direction, and should the racing increase in intensity with each subsequent lap.
With a few tricky corners to deal with and a 1.4km climb to tackle, it’s a technical parcours that should draw the peloton out and will encourage attacking racing. The climb begins with pitches of up to 18% so it will really favour the punchy climbers, and they may be able to drop the fast women who will have had their time to shine earlier in the week in Chongming.
The run in to the finish is a flat 7km section of the route that may give the hardier sprinters a chance to catch a leading group, if they have not fallen too far off the pace.
Riders to Watch
The Tour of Guangxi features an almost identical start list to that of this week’s Tour of Chongming, however, where the three-day stage race was all about the sprinters, it will likely be those teams who have brought a more all-around team who are able to challenge in Guangxi.
Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling are arguably the team to beat, with both Marta Lach and Laura Asencio who have proven themselves over this kind of terrain. Lach is likely to enter the race as the favourite, and in winning the second stage at Chongming, has proven herself to be in strong late-season form. Kathrin Schweinberger offers a third option for the team.
They will be challenged by UAE Team ADQ, who bring Alena Amialiusik who can handle hilly terrain, with Eleonora Gasparrini also in tow, should the race come down to a sprint. Tereza Neumanova has also performed strongly so far in Chongming and is clearly in good shape. As one of the only other WWT teams at the race, Human Powered Health will hope to be in the mix; Giada Borghesi may be the leader for them. And Roland also have three riders who could feature in Maggie Coles-Lyster, Elena Pirrone, and Sylvie Swinkels, who is riding consistently well at the Tour of Chongming.
Outside of the WWT teams, threats could come from the likes of Mieke Docx, for Lotto-Dstny Ladies and Laura Tomasi and Cristina Tonetti of Laboral Kutxa–Fundación Euskadi
Riders to watch (GC)
5-stars Marta Lach
4-stars Alena Amialiusik, Kathrin Schweinberger
3-stars Maggie Coles-Lyster, Giada Borghesi
2-stars Laura Asencio, Sylvie Swinkels
1-star Mieke Docx, Tereza Neumanova
Summary
When – 20 October
Where – China
What – One-day race
TV Coverage: Eurosport, Discovery+
