One of many oldest girls’s occasions within the calendar, Trofeo Alfredo Binda – Commune di Cittiglio, can also be one of many uncommon one-day occasions of the spring the place SD Worx-Protime would not have its identify scrawled everywhere in the leaderboard by means of latest years. For 3 years operating, the Girls’s WorldTour race, which first came about 50 years in the past, has been the dominion of Lidl-Trek.
Final 12 months it was Shirin van Anrooij who took the honours for the workforce with a solo break, whereas Elisa Balsamo claimed the second spot from the small group dash behind. That ending flip of velocity was the important thing to victory for the workforce in 2022, when Balsamo triumphed in a lowered bunch dash, and in 2021 it was Elisa Longo Borghini with a solo win.
The query now could be can the workforce declare its first Girls’s WorldTour win of the 12 months to make it 4 in a row in Cittiglio in 2024?
There are once more a number of choices to cowl the same old race-winning situations of both a solo win or a small group dash. The winners of the final two years – Van Anrooij and Balsamo – line up with a power-packed squad behind them, however there are additionally loads of others who’ve proven that they’ve the flexibility to disrupt Lidl-Trek’s plight.
SD Worx-Protime, for one, might be have Elena Cecchini and Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, based on the preliminary begin listing, whereas Alpecin Deceuninck’s Puck Pieterse will come in with the jersey of the chief of the youth class within the Girls’s WorldTour on her again. UAE Workforce ADQ are anticipated to return in with the sturdy duo of Sofia Bertizzolo and Silvia Persico whereas Canyon-SRAM’s Soraya Paladin might be seeing if she will proceed, and even higher on, her run of high 5 finishes.
The following level of reckoning within the Girls’s WorldTour is quickly approaching, so it’s time for Cyclingnews to run the ruler over the favourites, in addition to a few of the outsiders, on the 140km race on Sunday March 17.
The unpredictability of Trofeo Alfredo Binda – with its two early climbs after setting off from Maccagno after which the four-time repeated mixture of the Casalzuigno and Orino – means to have one of the best probability at successful a workforce must hold its bases coated. Lidl-Trek definitely has executed that. The workforce has put collectively a squad that features the final two winners of the race Shirin van Anrooij, who received solo in 2023, and Elisa Balsamo, who claimed the 2022 win in a lowered bunch dash.
It was simply Van Anrooij’s second race of the street season when she celebrated her first girls’s WorldTour victory on the end line in Cittiglio final 12 months. In 2024, she might be concentrating on the race with a barely longer lead in, having began her street season at Setmana Valenciana, the place she got here tenth general and claimed the youth classification. Van Anrooij has proven the indicators of getting the shape in place to mount a formidable defence of her title, with a fifth at Strade Bianche and an attacking fourth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Balsamo too, is clearly in fantastic fettle after beginning her season with a pair of stage wins at Setmana Valenciana and taking second at Ronde van Drenthe behind Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-ProTime). Given the power and apparent type of the Lidl-Trek pair are carrying into the race, plus the truth that in addition they have a bunch different highly effective playing cards – Brodie Chapman, two-time winner Lizzie Deignan, Gaia Realini and Amanda Spratt – a fourth title in a row seems like a definite risk.
It’s usually a recreation of choose which SD Worx-Protime former winner may very well be the workforce’s foremost card for a race when narrowing down the highest contenders for a Girls’s WorldTour race, such has been the power of the workforce in latest seasons. Nonetheless Trofeo Alfredo Binda occurs to be a uncommon race the place the squad would not have an inventory of latest winners on the roster. In actual fact the Dutch workforce hasn’t celebrated victory in Cittiglio since 2016 when Lizzie Deignan, who now races for Lidl-Trek, claimed victory for a second 12 months operating whereas clad in Boels-Dolmans colors.
SD Worx-Protime’s high performer on the race over the previous six years has been Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, with second on the 2018 version after which a fourth in 2022. Nonetheless, as she returns from a 12 months out of the peloton it would not be stunning if it maybe takes her a bit longer to construct to her high racing degree this season, however there’s one other rider from the workforce who was additionally proper behind her at that 2022 version.
For Elena Cecchini, Trofeo Alfredo Binda is a race the place she has repeatedly discovered herself excessive on the outcomes tally. Her 5 top-10 finishes embody a trio of fifth locations, the latest in 2022, which was additionally the final time she competed on the occasion. The 31-year-old has clearly come into the season with a robust winter behind her, delivering a few high 10 stage outcomes at Setmana Valenciana when she began racing.
If she will get an opportunity at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Cecchini may simply be the rider to take the workforce again to the rostrum on the long-running Italian race.
When Balsamo received Trofeo Alfredo Binda from a lowered bunch dash in 2022, it was Sofia Bertizzolo who led the cost behind, taking the runner-up place. The race has been a staple of her season because the 26-year-old Italian turned skilled in 2016. The mixture of ups and downs with a quick end is precisely the place Bertizzolo excels, and is the kind of terrain that has led to her victory in latest seasons.
This 12 months, too, she delivered a robust early begin to verify she was effectively into her stride by spring, having began the 12 months in Australia and twice made it to the rostrum on the Santos Tour Down Underneath in addition to successful a criterium, the Geelong Traditional. The longer construct may stand Bertizzolo in good stead this 12 months, nonetheless, she definitely won’t be the one card for the workforce to play.
The final two occasions Silvia Persico has raced Trofeo Alfredo Binda, she has made it in with the entrance group, ending sixth in 2023 and eighth in 2022, which bodes effectively for what she could possibly do together with her refreshed deal with stage and at some point wins on the street in 2024.
The 26-year-old rider has set her cyclocross and GC ambitions apart to as an alternative set her sights on the Olympic Video games, and the Spring Classics are amongst her early objectives. Trofeo Alfredo Binda may effectively be marker to see how her work with new coach Luca Zenti is progressing, with indicators already that the construct is effectively on the best way after a 14th at Strade Bianche and eighth at Trofeo Oro earlier this month.
Puck Pieterse has already proven us simply what a robust pressure she could be within the mountain biking and cyclocross, with a 3rd within the elite race at each the newest Mountain Bike and Cyclo-cross World Championships. Her temporary foray onto the street in 2023 additionally made it crystal clear that her abilities prolong to a 3rd biking self-discipline, with the rider taking fifth at Strade Bianche final 12 months.
Not surprisingly after that first foray, Pieterse determined to tackle extra street races this 12 months and already the 21-year-old has stepped onto a Girls’s WorldTour podium. Pieterse began with high 10s at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Omloop van het Hageland this season, after which was thirteenth at Strade Bianche earlier than serving to mild up Ronde van Drenthe. First, she delivered an acceleration which peeled off a robust group of eight riders after which, when that was caught, nonetheless managed to ship third within the uphill dash.
It is a highly effective indicator that the rider is hitting her stride on the street as effectively, so be careful come Sunday when Pieterse will line up carrying the blue jersey of the chief of the youth classification of the Girls’s WorldTour.
Vittoria Guazzini fought her means into third place final 12 months in Cittiglio, standing on the rostrum alongside the 2 Lidl-Trek riders. It was a robust season begin for the Italian then, who early in 2023 had additionally hit the rostrum at Le Samyn des Dames after which taken seventh at Ronde van Drenthe. This 12 months the 23-year-old has taken it up even one other notch with a win at Le Samyn from a small group dash after which sixth on the Belgian Girls’s WorldTour race.
That ought to go away the rider, who claimed the primary U23 girls’s time trial World Championship in 2022, brimming with confidence as she takes on her first dwelling race of the season with the sensation of victory recent in her reminiscence. The preliminary begin listing additionally signifies that she may have some helpful firepower by her aspect, with Grace Brown prone to be on the roster. It may additionally probably mark the return to competitors of Marta Cavalli after a bone contusion within the pelvis suffered in a coaching fall that delayed her season begin.
Pfeiffer Georgi completed 2023 off with a win and has already delivered a sign that she is heading into 2024 on a agency footing. Whereas sickness might have intervened at Strade Bianche, it was a visit to the rostrum at Omloop van het Hageland and a high 10 eventually Sunday’s Ronde van Drenthe the place she was a robust assist rider for her teammate Charlotte Kool.
Georgi would not have a lot to point out by the best way of outcomes on the Italian Girls’s WorldTour race which she has solely taken half in twice – first when she was 18 in 2019, delivering a DNF, after which once more in 2021, when she got here thirty ninth – however this 12 months she might be returning as one of many key rider for dsm-firmenich PostNL, alongside Juliette Labous. The French rider, together with her prowess on the ascents, may come to the fore within the state of affairs that the race is shredded into ones and twos by the climbs however ought to or not it’s a lowered group dash Georgi is the clearer possibility.
Plus, the rider from Nice Britain has really proven she has bought what it takes to assert victory on the street to Cittiglio as a junior, having in 2018 began her season with a win within the U19 model of the race.
Mavi Garcia has already discovered her means onto the rostrum a number of occasions this season, her first with the newly-combined Liv AlUla Jayco. The Spanish champion stepped as much as third in her first race of the 12 months at Trofeo Palma Femina and on the UAE Tour on stage 3 to Jebel Hafeet, which then additionally helped her to 3rd general on the stage race. It was then twelfth at Strade Bianche because the season, the place the rider is hoping for a bounce again from 2023, continues to point out promise.
Garcia has already made her means into the highest ten twice at Trofeo Alfredo Binda and together with her Jebel Hafeet consequence a transparent signal that she is climbing effectively, search for the 40 12 months outdated to try to make her transfer on the ascents, or no less than comply with the important thing assaults there.
Soraya Paladin has raced each single version of Trofeo Alfredo Binda since 2014, and impressively the 30-year-old hasn’t completed exterior the highest 10 since 2018. She has been within the high 5 the final three years, hitting the rostrum in 2022. With a document like that, it’s arduous to guess in opposition to the Italian.
“I’m wanting ahead to Sunday as I at all times just like the course,” stated Paladin in a workforce launch. “I wasn’t feeling 100% effectively at Strade Bianche, however I’ve now improved and count on a significantly better race.”
Elise Chabbey can also be one other sturdy possibility for the workforce having simply delivered eighth at Strade Bianche. It may effectively be the case that the Swiss rider seems for a break alternative whereas the Italian gives the dash possibility as that was definitely the plan in 2022 when Paladin got here third.
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