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Get your week started with the latest news in women’s cycling
British rider Pfeiffer Georgi and Dutch teammate Charlotte Kool will continue riding for Team dsm-firmenich until 2026, while German rider Franziska Koch remains with the Dutch squad until 2025.
New Zealand sprinter Michaela Drummond will join Arkéa Pro Cycling Team next season. Besides road racing, she has also achieved excellent results on the track in the team pursuit, winning numerous medals with the New Zealand national team at the World Championships.
Young New Zealand talent Ella Wyllie will join Jayco-AlUla next season. She had some standout performances with the support of her current team, LifePlus Wahoo. Among other achievements, she was second in the young rider classification at Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
Strong time trialist Lieke Nooijen will ride for Jumbo-Visma Women next season. She enjoys tough races and is not afraid of long sprints and lead-outs.
Czech rider Kristýna Burlová will join LifePlus-Wahoo for the next two years. This young athlete prefers sprint stages with a bit of a punch at the end.
Swedish rider Karin Soderqvist and Polish teammate Kaja Rysz will remain at Lifeplus-Wahoo for another season.
British rider Monica Greenwood will join Team Coop-Hitec Products for the next two seasons. The 34-year-old rider will bring a lot of experience to the team. Her compatriot April Tacey also joins the squad until end of 2025.
Victorie Guilman has announced her departure from FDJ-SUEZ. After 8 years with the French team, she has decided to pursue new professional goals.
Italian rider Vittoria Bussi will attempt to reclaim the UCI Hour Record on 11 October at the Velodromo Bicentenario in Aguascalientes, Mexico. The current record was established by Ellen van Dijk on 23 May 2022 at the Velodrome in Grenchen, Switzerland.
French rider Pauline Ferrand Prevot has caught Covid and had to withdraw from the European Gravel Championships that were held over the past weekend. Her start at the Gravel World Championships has not been confirmed.
The Jumbo-Visma women’s team has made several staff changes. The three female performance coaches Carmen Small, Lieselot Decroix and Mariek van Wanroij will not be part of the team in 2024. The squad hopes to create a stronger link between the women’s and men’s teams, with Maarten van Kooij as performance coach and Jan Boven and Jos van Emden starting as race coaches with the women’s team.
Annemiek van Vleuten, although retired, will still ride the World Gravel Championships in Veneto, Italy, on Saturday, 7th of October, the day before her 41st birthday. She has not trained for the event specifically but said she will just enjoy the race. Demi Vollering and Lorena Wiebes are also set to start at the event next weekend.
Flanders Classics has unveiled its 2024 Spring Classics calendar. More details can be found here.
22 races have been confirmed for the 2024 Trek UCI Gravel World Series. Next year one new race in Africa and five new events in Europe have been added. The series is a grouping of qualifier races for the UCI Gravel World Championships, scheduled from 5-6 October 2024 in Belgium.
The organisers of the new UCI race, Gran Premio New York City, hope to also add a women’s edition in 2024. Because the race would require additional road closure times, the women’s event is pending additional sponsorship.
Tour operator Vacansoleil, a sponsor of Jumbo Viisma, has run into financial difficulties and filed for bankruptcy. However, there is speculation that Amazon will join Jumbo-Visma as new co-sponsor, helping to fill a budget gap left by the departure of grocery chain Jumbo. Amazon has already worked closely with Jumbo-Visma since 2022, producing a film about the team for Amazon’s Prime streaming services.
Belgian newspapers in particular have been ablaze with news about a possible merger between Soudal Quick-Step and Jumbo-Visma. However, there has not been any mentinon as of yet about how this will affect Jumbo-Visma Women and AG Insurance-Soudal Quick-Step.
Laboral Kutxa will apply for a 2024-25 World Tour license. Laboral Kutxa and the Euskadi Foundation have expanded their collaboration for the next 6 years and the new agreement has a priority focus on growing the women’s structure, which aspires to achieve a World Tour place starting in 2024.
WBD Sports Europe has announced that the women’s cycling audience on Eurosport discovery+ and GCN+ increased by 25 per cent during the Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift this year.
The North Netherlands police will stop supervising cycling events by motorbike officers from 1 January, with the police aiming to focus more on their own core tasks. The decision applies throughout Drenthe, Groningen and Friesland. According to the police, it will be primarily the responsibility of organisers and permit providers of a cycling event to take safety measures.
The VELO Sports Center in Carson, California, will host the 2024 Pan American Track Cycling Championships from 4-7 April 2024. The participating countries include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela. Bahamas, Canada, Dominican Republic, Netherlands Antilles and Puerto Rico.
The riders who have announced their retirement at the end of this season: Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team), Marta Bastianelli (UAE Team ADQ), Tayler Wiles (Lidl-Trek) Jessica Allen (Jayco-AlUla), Rachel Neylan (Cofidis) Hannah Barnes (Uno-X), Kim de Baat (Fenix-Deceuninck), Georgia Williams (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB), Senne Knaven (AG Insurance-NXTG)
Results
MTB World Cup Snowshoe, USA, XCC: Evie Richards (GBR) ahead of Puck Pieterse (NED) and Rebecca Henderson (AUS)
Giro dell’Emilia Internazionale Donne Elite: Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ – Suez) ahead of Marta Cavalli (FDJ – Suez) and Juliette Labous (Team dsm – firmenich)
Zwift Blog
In her exclusive blog, Megan Jastrab of dsm-firmenich talks about the unique situation of training for an off-season! Read all about it here.
This week in cycling history
Regina Schleicher
The now 49-year-old sprinter was one of Germany’s most successful riders, winning the national championships, the European Championships in 1995 and this week in 2005 the World Championships in Madrid. Encouraged by her father, who was a cycling coach, she entered competitive sports. After winning the World title, she bemoaned the minimal interest in women’s cycling in her country, citing a lack of TV coverage, media and sponsorships. She trained as an early child educator and after her retirement moved to Italy where she now owns a honey farm.
Mirjam Melchers-Van Poppel
The Dutch rider celebrated her 47th birthday on 26 September. During her racing career, she won many esteemed races and held the number one UCI ranking in 2001. She was not only an accomplished road cyclist, winning many one-day races such as twice the Tour of Flanders and finishing second at the World Championships in Canada, but was also successful in cyclocross racing. In more recent years she has worked as a personal sports coach and as a human resources consultant at Jumbo Supermarkets.
Zwift Rides of the week
Voxwomen Zwift Rides
Join, ride, share, and be inspired! Join others and celebrate women’s cycling through a women’s cycling fan club on Zwift. Be part of the journey and complete rides that cater to our busy lives, and find motivation and enjoyment through riding!
The rides are open to everyone and there are two rides every other Thursday. The times of the ride are 7am and 7pm GMT (8am and 8pm CET) and are 40min in duration with special guests leading the rides! The pace will be set to open, but “rubberbanding” will be turned on which keeps everyone together regardless of how hard they are pedaling – so it is a no-drop ride as long as you keep pedaling. On the ride days, one ride will be a standard group ride, while the second ride will be Zwift’s Aerobic Conditioning Workout. Find inspiration from each other and have fun challenging yourself! We hope you join us in the virtual world of cycling!
Take advantage of the club chat and be a part of the women’s cycling community also – there will be some giveaways from time to time, so be on the lookout!
From our Online Store
Women’s hoodie
This organic hoodie features the Voxwomen Club logo with the words “Join, ride, share and be inspired.” Show your support for women’s cycling and support Voxwomen, with this stylish cotton hoodie. Buy yours here!
Men’s hoodie
This certified organic cotton pullover hoodie features the Voxwomen Club logo! Show your support for women’s cycling and support Voxwomen at the same time, with this stylish hoodie. Get yours here!
