The 2024 Giro d’Italia Women marks a contemporary chapter in its thirty fifth version, full with a rebrand beneath new administration, RCS Sports, who took over organising tasks as a part of a four-year time period by 2027.
The occasion has been diminished to eight phases from its conventional ten, nevertheless it nonetheless guarantees a difficult route full with a gap time trial, two dash phases, two intermediate phases, and three mountain checks, together with a summit to Blockhaus.
This season, the Women’s WorldTour calendar has adjusted to accommodate the Olympic Games, separating the 2 massive Grand Tours; Giro d’Italia Women and Tour de France Femmes, beforehand held back-to-back in July.
For this 12 months, the ASO has pushed the Tour to a short lived August date following the conclusion of the Olympics, which may have allowed for extra riders to focus on each occasions because of the elevated variety of days and extra restoration time in between.
Still, some riders will give attention to one or the opposite, particularly if they’re additionally representing their nations on the Olympic Games, so the sector seems to be racing with out Tour de France champion Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), amongst others. That means it’s the most open version in a few years, notably provided that the riders that swept up the final six editions between them, Annemiek van Vleuten and Anna van der Breggen, are each – at this level no less than – retired.
Cyclingnews has chosen the highest riders to look at on the 2024 Giro d’Italia Women.
The maglia rosa has Elisa Longo Borghini’s title written throughout it. The Italian Champion will undoubtedly desire a re-do after she crashed on stage 5 whereas she was in second place total and was then pressured to desert altogether forward of stage 6.
She had a turbulent season final 12 months, additionally contracting COVID-19, a nasty pores and skin an infection and sepsis.
But she managed to show issues round this 12 months with a victory on the Tour of Flanders, podiums on the Ardennes Classics, Vuelta España Femenina, and Tour de Suisse, and a defence of her street race title on the Italian National Championships.
Longo Borghini has completed on the general podium twice in 2020 and 2017, and he or she may discover herself within the excellent place this 12 months to safe the maglia rosa. The course is difficult, as all the time, however the relentlessly undulating terrain mixed with the longer high-altitude climbs go well with her finest. She is a robust all-rounder, and with out Vollering, Niewiadoma, and with Annemiek van Vleuten now retired, she is the outright favorite for this Grand Tour.
Lidl-Trek even have a contender in Gaia Realini, who completed third in final 12 months’s version. She shall be particularly eyeing the Blockhaus stage as a spot to say a victory and in addition combat for the GC if it comes all the way down to that climb.
Juliette Labous will lead the GC cost for dsm-firmenich PostNL and after ending second total final 12 months, she is one step away from claiming her first Grand Tour victory.
Labous enjoys racing the Ardennes Classics however she actually excels in stage racing, so that is the time of the 12 months once we often see her shine. Whether it is within the shorter Spanish stage races resembling Vuelta a Burgos, which she received in 2022, or Itzulia Women, the place she has completed on the rostrum, Labous’ strengths cater to each lengthy, sustained climbs and time trials.
The Giro d’Italia Women, subsequently, shall be proper up her alley with a gap time trial in Brescia to present her an optimum begin to the eight-day race.
Although Labous tends to stay beneath the radar, she should not be underestimated. She is a constant and tactical rider and shall be one to look at for any harmful breakaways, whereas she can be able to driving a excessive tempo on the longer ascents, even whereas her rivals battle it out.
The Giro d’Italia Women would be the starting of an necessary block of racing. She simply received the street race title on the French Championships and was chosen for the Paris Olympic Games and can focus, too, on the Tour de France Femmes, each occasions on dwelling soil.
While Demi Vollering seems to have opted to skip the Giro d’Italia Women, World Champion Lotte Kopecky is a chief contender for the general title. Despite being the winner of many one-day races, together with Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, do not rule her out for a Grand Tour victory.
Just in case anybody wants reminding, Kopecky had an unimaginable efficiency on the Tour de France Femmes final 12 months. She received the opening stage, wore the yellow jersey for six days, climbed with the very best to the summit of the Col du Tourmalet, after which stormed to 3rd place within the time trial in Pau. She closed out the eight-day race by profitable the inexperienced factors jersey and taking second total behind her teammate Vollering.
She has had a profitable 12 months of stage racing already, with total wins on the UAE Tour, the place she received the stage atop Jebel Hafeet, and the Tour of Britain Women.
She actually has a sensible shot on the maglia rosa, and since she has opted to not race on the Vuelta España Femenina or the Tour de France Femmes this 12 months, it will likely be her solely probability at a Grand Tour title.
Mavi Garcia was third total within the 2022 version, and he or she has been a staple within the GC standings, ending seventh final 12 months, fifth in 2021, and ninth in 2020.
The former Spanish Champion excels throughout hilly terrain and in robust, tactical racing usually guaranteeing that she is able to combat for a breakaway or end among the many choice on main ascents.
Although she hasn’t had her finest season to date this 12 months, she appears to be bettering forward of the summer time stage races, having completed fourth total at Itzulia Women and only recently profitable the Vuelta Ciclista Andalucia.
Garcia is probably going to make use of the mid-mountain races on phases 3, 4, 5, and 6 to her benefit and try and take the maglia rosa, whereas holding her place on the 2 high-mountain phases 7 and eight.
It is essentially a climbing-focused workforce for Jayco-AlUla this 12 months, with Ella Wyllie additionally a GC focus as a contender for the youth jersey whereas Ruby Roseman-Gannon would be the rider for the sprints.
Silvia Persico has develop into one of many rising abilities of Italian bike racing. She’s an all-rounder who will not be pigeonholed into one racing type. She’s a world-class cyclocross racer who has confirmed herself as one of many sport’s dominant one-day and stage racers, with a capability to dash and climb with the very best.
She is now in her second season on the Women’s WorldTour with UAE Team ADQ, since turning into the revelation on the 2022 Tour de France Femmes, and has gained quite a lot of expertise in that brief period of time.
She continues to check her boundaries throughout all kinds of terrain this 12 months, ending with high 10s on the Mallorca Challenge occasions, eighth total on the UAE Tour, and high 10s on the Spring Classics; Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Tour of Flanders, which implies that she has the energy to race among the many high riders on the planet.
She took a break from racing after Vuelta a Burgos and lately competed on the Italian Championships, so she ought to be coming into the Giro d’Italia Women as a wildcard.
UAE Team ADQ may have a punchy roster, too, with Erica Magnaldi for the climbs and Chiara Consonni and Eleonora Camilla Gasparrini for the sprints.
Given the brief opening time trial, adopted by a sequence of dash and mid-mountains phases, it could not be shocking to see Persico land herself within the maglia rosa on dwelling soil. Holding the general lead within the closing two mountain phases is perhaps a troublesome activity, given the climbing expertise within the race, however Persico is the type of rider who will go down combating.
Movistar heads into this race because the defending champions, however the workforce have restructured given the retirement of four-time total champion Annemiek van Vleuten.
It can be unreasonable to assume anybody may fill Van Vleuten’s sneakers after a glowing profession within the one-day races and stage races, however Lippert spent the 2023 season honing her energy and ability and studying from the one season they spent collectively as teammates on Movistar.
In reality, Van Vleuten felt that Lippert had a brilliant future and anticipated extra high performances in her profession, particularly after the previous German Champion received a stage into Mauriac on the Tour de France Femmes. That victory appeared to open the door to confidence, serving to Lippert to grasp per potential on the Women’s WorldTour.
She had a later begin to this season, starting on the Vuelta España Femenina, and her outcomes have not been as sturdy as final 12 months, but, however Lippert is simply simply getting began. She comes into the Giro d’Italia Women with a query mark over her type, however that provides her considerably of a wildcard standing among the many peloton, maybe more energizing than those that have been racing since January.
She will once more have massive targets on the Tour de France Femmes, and so the Giro d’Italia Women would be the first step towards that purpose.
When Ruth Edwards returned to the skilled peloton in 2024 after a retirement that lasted two years, it was instantly clear that she was doing so with type and intent. In simply her second day of Women’s WorldTour racing since 2021, the 30-year-old had already discovered her means into the highest 10, then rapidly upped the ante with a fourth place on the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
In Europe, she then returned to the rostrum at Trofeo Oro in Euro and on her lead-in race to the Giro d’Italia Women, the Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour, it was a return to the highest step with Edwards claiming total victory. That means there may be each purpose for the rider from the United States to move into the occasion with appreciable confidence.
She will not be a pure mountain goat, like a few of her rivals, however her versatility may serve her properly on the race which begins with a person time trial. While it could be her first Grand Tour since her return to skilled biking, it is also an occasion at which she has loads of highly effective expertise, lining up for a seventh time at a race in 2024.
Edwards raced the Italian tour for the primary time in 2013, the place she was a part of the United States workforce that helped propel Mara Abbott to total victory. In 2018, she additionally twice obtained to face on the highest step of the rostrum on the race, firstly as a part of the opening workforce time trial profitable squad of Team Sunweb after which with particular person victory on stage 5 which additionally put her in pink for a day. Two extra opening workforce time trial victories marked her most up-to-date participations in 2020 and 2021, with the latter additionally delivering one other day in pink, and it will not be her final.
Neve Bradbury had hoped to open her 2024 Grand Tour e book with La Vuelta Femenina however sickness intervened so the rider needed to reset and look additional into the 12 months for her probability on this season that guarantees a lot.
It has already been a 12 months of firsts for the 22-year-old Australian, who claimed her first street race nationwide jersey when she received the U23 ladies’s class in January. It was then onto her first Women’s WorldTour stage and total podium on the Tour Down Under, rapidly adopted by a stage and total runner-up spot on the UAE Tour. She then made the leap to the highest step, claiming the win and second total on the Tour de Suisse Women final month behind Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering (SD Worx) however forward of key Giro rival, Elisa Longo Borghini.
This was the right lead-in for the rider who’s now coming into her fourth 12 months within the skilled ranks and confirmed simply what potential she needed to ship a robust total efficiency proper from her debut in 2022. The Zwift Academy winner might have entered the race two years in the past with the purpose being to assist her workforce however ultimately, she was the rider they had been backing, as she steadily labored her means up the rankings and into the highest ten total. This time there isn’t a doubt that she’ll be a supported rider proper from the beginning and one, given her type, that provides her Canyon-SRAM workforce each probability to hope that they are going to be up there within the entrance pack because the race hits the mountains.