2024 : Highs & Lows

2024 was another interesting year for the women's peloton. We saw riders shining, while other ones were standing more in the shadow this season. While the overall level of the peloton increased, it also led to easier finals from a tactical point of view. It was certainly another interesting year with many new trends & evolutions in the women's part of our sport to analyze and look further at. Five key points to remember from another memorable season.

No curse for Kopecky

A new recognizable jersey comes with new big pressure. But Lotte Kopecky didn't seem to feel that during the race at all. The Belgian rider stayed 'cool' during difficult circumstances and took the right decisions wherever she was racing for the victory. Wins in the Omloop, Strade Bianche and Paris-Roubaix, made it a memorable Spring campaign in the rainbow jersey. The races in the Flemish & Walloon Ardennes did not meet personal expectations but she compensates them very well in those other races. The 28-years old would continue her season with many other victories, close results, a new world title and as cherry on the cake, she wins the Womens' World Tour for the first time in her carreer.

The yellow wasn't bright enough

Remarkable views in Stage 5 of the Tour de France. Yellow jersey Demi Vollering crashed simultanously with a few team team mates around her, but defending the jersey wasn't the most important on that day. Team mate, Lorena Wiebes indicated that she saw 'something yellow' on the asphalt, but it seemingly wans't necessarily to bother further  about it. The SD Worx squad prefered to focus on the stage win and the yellow jersey had to limit the deficit by herself. Vollering lost 1:43 in that stage. In the end she lost the overall GC by 4 seconds... Perhaps a little bit support to lose few seconds less would have been more usefull then an 8th place for Lorena Wiebes in the stage results?

Peaking in your thirties

Remarkable there were no new youngsters who won a new major one day race this season, but riders who are already in their thirties. Grace Brown & Kristen Faulkner had the best seasons of their carreer at the age of 31. The Aussie won her first monument and the Olympic & World Time Trial titles, while the Yankee dropped everyone in the Olympic Road Race. After a common trend that race winners keep getting younger, those 2 ladies also proved that you can still make big steps forwards later in your carreer as well. 

The riders outperform the parcours

A notable trend in the Spring Classics is that we saw larger groups entering the finals then in previous years. It's noticeable that many fast sprinters survived finals that used to be too selective for sprinters before. It indicates that the peloton is growing much quicker than the difficulty of the parcours. One can ask if races of 140 km are still long enough for a peloton that gets much stronger & professional every season. Increasing the race by an hour and targeting 170 km for the ProSeries & World Tour races could make the real classic riders stand out more again as it used to be before. Let's give the ladies also their passage in Arenberg. The large group at 30 km from the finish this year showed that they really know well how to handle the cobbles already.

Few teams taste the highest success

It remains an issue that just a few top teams in women's cycling divide the big results between each other and that the top teams are heavily concentrated by talented riders that the smaller teams can't afford. Teams like Fenix, Visma and Ceratizit managed to achieve some noticeable results against those top teams, but unfortunatly the latter two loses many of their best riders for the upcoming season again too. It remains unfortunate that riders are quickly put together with lots of talented other riders and only receive a handful of chances during the whole year to show themselves, while the other teams aren't financially competitive enough to offer them those chances to do so. Let's hope that financial stronger sponsors can step in after next season, so that we will see the best riders better divided over the whole World Tour and we don't just see 4-5 teams that are able to control and direct the whole race at the World Tour level.

You can read an overview of the men's season through 5 stories in this article :
2024 : A year where history meets