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Get your week started with the latest news in women’s cycling

• The Tour of Flanders has announced its host cities for the next six years. The race will start in Antwerp in 2022, 2024 and 2026, while Bruges will host the start in 2023, 2025 and 2027.
• Emma Boogaard joined Team Hitec Products last week and made her debut at Scheldeprijs. Team Manager Karl Lima explained this recent addition to the team, saying that the squad had some injuries this season and needed an extra talented rider to reinforce the squad.
• Cofidis has confirmed that it will set up a women’s continental team next year. The squad will start racing in January 2022 and will consist of 10 riders. Cofidis will commit to a long-term project with a budget of 1 million Euros per year for its women’s squad, which will also benefit from the resources that are currently available to Cofidis’ men’s team.
• Kasia Niewiadoma has extended her contract with Canyon//SRAM. The Polish rider, currently ranked ninth in the world, joined the team in 2018 and will now ride with the squad until the end of 2024.
• Yara Kastelijn of Plantur-Pura Cycling Team, who was injured at the Ronde van Vlaanderen with a dislocated shoulder joint, found out after additional examinations a few days later that she has also suffered a non-displaced elbow fracture, and will be out of racing for some time. We wish her a speedy recovery!
• The UCI has tightened the regulations for photographers at race finishes for safety reasons. Specific rules are now in place for the positioning of press photographers at summit and bunch sprint finishes.
• Developed with investment from The Recruitment Group, Loughborough University will support a six-rider strong team who will compete in Britain. The new squad will have access from experts in areas such as coaching, nutrition, physiotherapy and bike fitting.
• The UCI World Cycling Centre program, which has been supporting athletes to perform in the Olympic disciplines of road, track and BMX, has selected its riders for this year, who will train and be coached in an elite training facility in Aigle, Switzerland. The female riders come from Ethiopia, Morocco, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Eritrea, Belarus, Slovakia and Canada.
• Ellen van Dijk has announced that she will have to sit out Brabantse Pijl and Amstel Gold Race after a Covid diagnosis. We wish her a speedy recovery and return to racing.

Results

Ronde de Mouscron: Chiara Consonni (Valcar – Travel & Service) ahead of Jelena Erić (Team Movistar) and Maria Martins (Drops – Le Col p/b TEMPUR)

Zwift Blog

Lauren Kitchen

Our latest exclusive blog from the FDJ Nouvelle-Acquitaine Futuroscope rider takes you on a journey through her favourite ride in Australia. Share Lauren’s excitement of being out and about on her bike in her home country by checking out her latest piece here.

Shara Marche

Check out this recipe for Shakshuka from Team SD Worx’ Food Coach, Shara Marche!

Ella Harris

New Zealand rider Ella Harris has penned her first piece for us this year, in which she shares the events surrounding her crash, the excitement of working with a new coach, and how she’s looking forward to getting back to Europe after spending the off-season in New Zealand.

Five minutes with…

This week in cycling history

Josiane Bost

Bost turned 65 on 7th April. She was one of the best French riders in the 1970s, having won the 1977 Road World Championships in San Cristóbal in Venezuela. Before the race, she said that she felt she had a good chance of winning as soon as she was given her race number, 51. A good sign, she explained, as she comes from the region of Bernard Thévenet and Michel Laurent. Thévenet won the Tour with number 51 and Laurent with the same number won Paris – Nice, so she felt she couldn’t lose. Bost was also twice the national pursuit champion and the French sprint champion, besides coming second three times in the national road championships, where she was beaten each time by Geneviève Gambillon.

Yvonne McGregor

9th April was Yvonne McGregor’s 60^th birthday. Until the age of 28, the English athlete competed in running but after an injury she switched to cycling, breaking Beryl Burton’s 20-year-old British 10 mile time trial record in 1993 and setting a new Hour Record in Manchester in 1995. She made the podium at the 2000 Sydney Olympics in the track discipline, becoming the first female British Olympic medallist in any cycling discipline. Two months later, at the 2000 UCI Track Worlds in Manchester, she took gold in the Pursuit. After her retirement in 2002, she was made an MBE for her services to the sport of cycling, and started a new career as a sports massage therapist.

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