Your Monday Briefing

11 April 2022
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6:00 am

News, Vox News

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

Viewership of the 2022 Ronde van Vlaanderen women’s race has increased from previous years. While in 2019 around 150,000 watched the race, this number climbed to approximately 760,000 this year.

The dates for the Olympic road races Paris have been announced: ITT on 27 July (14.30 – 18.30 CEST) and road races 4 August (14.00 – 18.45 CEST)

Australia will welcome two gravel racing events as part of the inaugural Trek UCI Gravel World Series. One race will be held in the Margaret River Region of Western Australia. The full course of 125km features a total of ten officially categorised climbs, and aims to be the most challenging one-day event in the world. The second race will be held in Beechworth, Victoria, with another challenging course.

Amstel Gold Race has offered equal prize money for the men’s and women’s race. The winner received €16,000 of a total purse of €40,000 for the race on Sunday.

Gloucestershire will welcome The Women’s Tour for the first time ever on stage three. The stage will pass through the Forest of Dean on the way to the finish by the historic Gloucestershire Docks.

The inaugural Life Time Grand Prix race series kicked of last Saturday in Monterey, California, with 60 international elite competitors. Ruth Winder, Emily Joy Newsom and Amber Neben were among those at the start line. During the next six months, riders will travel across the US to compete in a number of gravel and mountain bike events for a $250,000 prize purse.

Results

Amstel Gold Race: Marta Cavalli (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) ahead of Demi Vollering (Team SD Worx) and Liane Lippert (Team DSM)

Scheldeprijs: Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) ahead of Chiara Consonni (Valcar Travel & Service) and Rachele Barbieri (Liv Racing Xstra)

Vox Performance Project Blog

With an ironman competition soon approaching Amy Cuthbertson reflects on her progress thanks to the Vox Performance Project. Combing training for the event and holding a full-time job at the same time isn’t easy but she is feeling more in control and full of confidence. Read about her progress here.

Zwift Blog

Women’s History Month is coming to a close, a month which highlighted and celebrated the contributions of women to society. Against this context Tanja Erath of EF Education-TIBCO-SVB takes a “status check” of professional cycling in her latest blog.

This week in cycling history

Julia Furtado

Born on 4 April 1967 in New York, Furtado was one of the most dominant riders in mountain biking racing history, and is still the only rider, male or female, to ever win the World Championships in downhill and cross-country. Initially starting out as a skier, injury forced her to switch to cycling and in 1989 in her first year of competing, she won the national road title. Over the next six years of her career, she went on to win five National Championships, three World Cup titles and another World Championship title. At the Atlanta Olympics where she was the favourite to win, she didn’t make it to the podium due to her until then undiagnosed Lupus illness. Soon afterwards she was forced to retire due to this condition. Furtado, who has been struggling since childhood with depression, has only recently opened up in a book about her mental struggles and the way she has been coping with this. In 1999, she launched the Juliana, the first ever women-specific mountain bike. Her business evolved into offering the largest range of mountain bikes dedicated to women.

Josiane Bost

Bost turned 66 on 7 April. She was one of the best French riders in the 1970s, having won the 1977 World Road Championships in San Cristóbal in Venezuela. Before the world championships race, she said that she felt she had a good chance of winning as soon as she was given her race number 51. It was 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 once the French sprint champion, in addition to coming second three times in the national road championships, where she was beaten each time by Geneviève Gambillon.

Rides of the week

Sub 7 / Sub 8

The race to rewrite triathlon history is on. The Pho3nix SUB7/SUB8 project powered by Zwift aims to break the 7 and 8 hour time barriers, for men and women respectively, in the sport of long-distance triathlon (3.8 km/180 km/42.2 km).

This series features social group rides and runs, races and time trials. There is no ride leader so choose your own pace, go hard or easy, and unlock the SUB8 kit at the end of the ride. Click here for more!

UNBOUND Gravel

UNBOUND Gravel is a grassroots race of various distances perfect for gravel-riding endurance cyclists. Recently, UNBOUND named Zwift as its Official Training Community and Training App. So we decided to build an Unbound Training Experience for the Zwift community and participants of the UNBOUND Gravel event taking place June 4.

This series will feature endurance and recovery rides on various courses leading up to the big event! Click here for more!

From our online shop

“If in doubt, go flat out” hoodie – £40

Bring a little comfort to your day with this slogan hoodie, inspired by the Voxwomen team attitude. It doesn’t matter how “flat out” is “flat out” to you, that freedom of riding a bike is perfectly encapsulated in this statement. Made with all natural products and available in a range of colours. All Voxwomen products sold help us raise the profile of womens cycling directly so thank you for your support. Get yours here!