The 2024 highway racing season steps up one other stage this weekend with the opening males’s and girls’s races on the European calendar overlapping with the ultimate phases of the lads’s Tour Down Beneath and the Benidorm cyclocross World Cup.
The lads’s Clàssica Comunitat Valenciana 1969 and the Trofeo Felanitx-Colònia Sant Jordi in Mallorca kick off a packed five-week unofficial ‘early-season’ calendar of racing that runs by February to the Spring Classics, that start with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium on February 24.
The early season is likely one of the busiest occasions of the 12 months. Each group, sponsor and rider need some early victories to spice up morale and present they’re prepared for 2024. There are additionally a haul of UCI rating factors accessible, that are important to WorldTour standing and ProTeam invites to future WorldTour races.
The early-season occasions assist riders work on their race health and race craft after lengthy blocks of winter coaching, new teammates get to race collectively for the primary time, dash leads outs are examined and polished, and everybody lays the foundations for the larger targets later within the season.
A number of choices for the lads
From Valencia and subsequent week’s Problem Mallorca races, the lads and their groups can observe a variation of calendars relying on their ambitions, season plans and talents. WorldTour, ProTeam and Continental groups race collectively in a myriad of races.
The early calendar contains Etoile de Bessèges and different races within the south of France, the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, Tour Colombia, the Volta ao Algarve in Portugal, the Vuelta a Andalucía Ruta Del Sol, the AlUla Tour in Saudi Arabia, the Tour of Oman, males’s and girls’s UAE Tour WorldTour races, and plenty of others.
Whereas the likes of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) and a few Classics contenders might choose to mix or precede coaching at altitude with their 2024 debuts, most groups will run double and even triple race programmes.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Crew Emirates), Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) are racing much less and coaching within the spring, whereas the sprinters are particularly eager to rack up early season victories.
From group camps to early racing in Spain
Most groups have spent a big a part of December and January in Spain at coaching camps, making the most of the hotter, drier climate.
The early-season Spanish races provide comparable advantages, and Saturday’s Clàssica Comunitat Valenciana 1969 contains the Coll de Charges climb, the place many riders have completed their testing. Michael Matthews and Dylan Groenewegen lead Jayco AlUla, Bryan Coquard is a risk for Cofidis and the beginning checklist features a host of proficient younger riders.
The 2024 early season additionally contains the Ruta de la Cerámica-Gran Premio Castellón race on Sunday within the north of Valencia, providing a second likelihood for a really early win and check of kind.
The lads’s five-day Problem de Mallorca follows between January 24-28 and can entice one other collection of riders making their season debut, with the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana again on the Costa Blanca between January 31-February 4. There are different races in Murcia after which the Vuelta a Andalucía Ruta del Sol between February 14-18.
O Gran Camiño is scheduled for February 22-25, with Vingegaard set to make his season debut within the hilly four-day race, racing alongside Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike) and different huge names that keep away from the Opening Weekend and the UAE Tour.
The traditions of the South of France
France as soon as hosted the primary early-season races as groups skilled on the Mediterranean. Most groups have migrated to Spain and the Tour Down Beneath globalised the early season, however the French races stay an important stepping stone to the spring.
The forty fifth version of the Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise kicks off racing on January 28 in Marseille. All of the French groups will likely be in motion, with Magnus Cort additionally making his debut for Uno-X Mobility. The Etoile de Bessèges-Tour du Gard follows between January 31 and February 4, and ends with a group time trial round beautiful Alès.
Subsequent up is the Tour de la Provence between February 8-11, adopted by the Traditional Var and the two-day Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var on February 16 and 17-18. The final races of the French early season are the Faun-Ardèche Traditional on February 24 and the Drôme Traditional on February 25. Extra single race days imply extra UCI factors on provide, attracting extra groups.
Australia, Saudi Arabia, Oman after which the UAE Tour
Some riders started their 2024 season on the Tour Down Beneath in Australia and they’ll trip the Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race subsequent weekend earlier than travelling to Europe maybe through the Center East races.
The AlUla Tour provides one other heat climate early race between January 30 and February 3, whereas the Tour of Oman is held between February 10-14, with the Muscat basic including an additional day of racing on February 9.
The UAE Tour is simply a brief flight away and provides extra dash alternatives and WorldTour factors earlier than the general classification is set on the Jebel Hafeet climb on February 25. The Tour du Rwanda is a decrease stage various for late February racing.
Fabio Jakobsen (Crew dsm-firmenich PostNL) is predicted to make his season debut in Oman, with Tour Down Beneath revelation Isaac Del Toro a potential total contender, alongside UAE Crew Emirates teammate Adam Yates.
The USA’s Luke Lamperti will likely be a part of the Soudal-QuickStep lineup after making his debut on the Problem Mallorca and he might additionally make his mark within the sprints. The mountain end on Inexperienced Mountain will resolve the general winner.
The UAE Tour lasts seven phases between February 19-25 and so overlaps with the Opening Weekend however provides desert racing, nice motels and a few winter solar as a substitute of the cobbles and chilly climate of Belgium.
A Colombian altitude expertise
The Vuelta a San Juan isn’t any extra because of financial difficulties in Argentina however Colombia provides an alternate South American early-season expertise, with the Tour Colombia again on between February 6-11.
Cavendish and his Astana Qazaqstan teammates are already in Colombia, coaching at altitude, whereas Rigoberto Uran and Richard Carapaz will make their season debuts with EF Training-EasyPost and Bernal leads the Colombian nationwide group. Nairo Quintana may also race for Movistar after using the Colombian nationwide championships subsequent week.
Large names face off in Portugal
Paris-Good and Tirreno-Adriatico are historically the primary stage race showdowns of the season however because the season is beginning earlier and earlier, and the Volta ao Algarve has grown in significance.
This 12 months the February 14-18 five-stage race will see Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), conflict with Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), João Almeida (UAE Crew Emirates), Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek) and Van Aert and others. A complete of 14 WorldTour groups will likely be on the beginning line, elevating the standard of the racing.
The route features a hilly stage to the Alto da Fóia, a last stage as much as Alto do Malhāo and a hilly 22km time trial. It appears excellent for Evenepoel to offer an early indication of his 2024 kind and stage race intentions.
A brand new Spanish twist to the ladies’s early season
The ladies’s peloton started racing on the Ladies’s WorldTour opener Tour Down Beneath, received by Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance coverage-Soudal), and people riders and groups will keep in Australia for the following spherical on the Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race on January 27.
Not all groups made the journey to the southern hemisphere and plenty of will start their highway racing seasons in Europe on the new occasion for girls on the Mallorca Problem, which provides three one-day races held from Jan 20-22.
The ladies’s race precedes the lads’s occasion on the Spanish island, with your complete eight days of racing rebranded because the Backyard Inns Luxcom Problem. Each the lads’s and girls’s races will likely be broadcast dwell on Eurosport and Teledeporte in Spain.
The ladies’s racing in Mallorca begins with the Trofeo Felanitx-Colònia Sant Jordi adopted by Trofeo Palma Femina after which Trofeo Binissalem-Andratx, and so they provide loads of alternative for the Continental groups to race in opposition to the Ladies’s WorldTeams.
There are six WorldTeams anticipated to line up for the three races with headlining riders: Olympic Champion Anna Kiesenhofer (Roland), Arlenis Sierra (Movistar), Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance coverage-Soudal) and Joscelin Lowden (Uno-X Mobility). Paris-Roubaix champion Alison Jackson will compete with the newly-formed EF Training-Cannondale, and Mavi Garcia (Liv AlUla Jayco) will lead the Spanish nationwide group.
Extra Spanish races
A hotbed for early-season racing, mainland Spain may also host a top quality peloton throughout 4 occasions – three 1.1. one-day races and a ProSeries stage race – and proceed to supply the nation’s elite and second-tier groups loads of alternative for competitors.
Additionally it is the proper time of the season for the WorldTeams to mix racing and coaching camps below the nice and cozy Spanish solar alongside the coastal communities from Almeria to Valencia.
With a lineup of races that supply a mixture of brief, steep climbing and quick finishes, the routes present a mixture of difficult racing and extra coaching forward of the WorldTour-level racing in Europe.
The Ladies’s Biking Professional Costa de Almeria is the primary of the collection of Spanish races held on January 28, received by Arianna Fidanza (Ceratizit-WNT) final 12 months. A lumpy 135km of racing between Campo Hermoso and Cuevas del Almanzora is more likely to see a profitable breakaway or a decreased group dash.
One other one-day race on the Vuelta CV Feminas on February 4 is now in its sixth version and has grow to be one of many staples of the early-season races. Movistar completed 1-2 in final 12 months’s version, with Floortje Mackaij taking a solo win forward of Liane Lippert. At 95km, the route is shorter, however with two mid-race ascents at Oronet and La Frontera, it’s really one for the breakaway specialists.
The peloton will then compete on the four-day Setmana Ciclista Valenciana-Vuelta Comunitat from Feb 15-18. The extent of competitors additionally strikes up a notch as this occasion is a part of the Professional Collection.
A well-attended occasion, Setmana Valenciana permits groups to do away with any pre-season nerves and get to know each other in a stage-race setting. It is also a race that may reveal which groups and riders are in kind and which want extra preparation and will produce a shock total winner because it did final 12 months in Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance coverage-Soudal).
The one-day Clasica de Almeria on February 25 is the final likelihood for groups to safe a pre-season win forward of the Spring Classics. The 137km race from Puebla de Vicar to Vera is hilly, with a mid-race ascent however a protracted descent into the end, the place Emilie Fortin took the primary win for Cynisca Biking.
The UAE Tour Ladies
At the moment of the 12 months, groups will likely be coming back from Australia, whereas others will likely be competing in Spain, however the huge focus and an even bigger aim will likely be on the UAE Tour Ladies, the third spherical of the Ladies’s World Tour held from February 8-11.
The inaugural occasion was held in 2023 as the ladies’s peloton headed to the Center East for the four-day race, which provided three dash alternatives dominated by rivals Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx) and Charlotte Kool (DSM).
A summit end spotlighted stage 3 atop Jebel Hafeet, received by Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek), and she or he went on to safe the general title.
Count on a lot of the identical for the 2024 version with comparable programs, beginning with the pan-flat stage to Dubai Harbour, a equally flat stage from Al Mirfa to Madinat Zayed, and the decisive stage to Jebel Hafeet earlier than the ultimate featureless stage across the Abu Dhabi waterfront.
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