Women’s WorldTour – The definitive information for 2024

Overview

Professional biking showcases 28 top-tier girls’s occasions that make up the 2024 Women’s WorldTour calendar. The season begins yearly on the Tour Down Under and Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race as a part of a packed season of Australian summer season racing that started the New Year.

The sequence then heads to the Middle East for the UAE Tour, a four-day stage race held in February, earlier than going to Europe for the beginning of the Spring Classics at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, which kicks off the ‘opening weekend’. The subsequent one-day races embrace highlights on the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix Femmes earlier than they culminated on the Ardennes Classics in April.

The stage racing season begins in May with three back-to-back top-tier occasions that included the La Vuelta Femenina – moved from its conventional September spot on the calendar – together with Itzulia Women and Vuelta a Burgos Feminas. The sequence then heads to the UK for RideLondon Classique and The Women’s Tour, after which again to Europe for the Tour de Suisse.

Summer stage racing then strikes into full swing in July with the revamped Giro d’Italia Women, adopted by the quadrennial Olympic Games in Paris, and Tour de France Femmes, which has been moved to August in 2024.

Late season racing begins with the one-day GP de Plouay adopted by a sequence of stage races: Tour of Scandinavia and Tour de Romandie in September, then the Simac Ladies Tour, Tour of Chongming Island and the one-day Tour of Guangxi in October.

Check in after the 2024 Women’s WorldTour races for our full studies, outcomes, galleries, information, options and evaluation. Subscribe to Cyclingnews.

Standings

Women’s WorldTour 2024 – Standings

History

Women’s WorldTour – History

The Women’s WorldTour sequence changed the previous one-day World Cup in 2016 and has grown to incorporate 28 races – with a mixture of one-day and stage races – to supply the ladies’s peloton and biking followers 10 months {of professional} bike racing. 

An distinctive season noticed Demi Vollering (SD Worx) win the person total sequence on the finish of final yr.

Now-retired Annemiek van Vleuten received the sequence title 3 times – 2018, 2021 and 2022. Other earlier winners of the person elite girls’s rating embrace Lizzie Deignan in 2020, Marianne Vos in 2019, Anna van der Breggen in 2017 and inaugural champion Megan Guarnier in 2016.

Many acquainted faces have left their marks as winners of the very best younger rider classification, together with Shirin van Anrooij in 2023 and 2022, Niamh Fisher-Black in 2021, Liane Lippert in 2020, Lorena Wiebes in 2019, Sofia Bertizzolo in 2018, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig in 2017, and Kasia Niewiadoma in 2016, and all have gone on to turn out to be fundamental contenders within the elite girls’s ranks.

The groups classification has been dominated by one crew, SD Worx (previously Boels Dolmans), which received the sequence seven occasions within the final seven seasons from 2016-2019 and once more in 2021-2023. Trek-Segafredo, now known as Lidl-Trek, is the one crew to have damaged their successful streak, taking victory in 2020.

Calendar

2024 Women’s WorldTour – Calendar

Teams

2024 Women’s WorldTour – Teams

In a reset of the Women’s WorldTeams, the UCI has awarded 15 new licences for the 2024-2025 seasons, with AG Insurance-Soudal and Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling transferring as much as the highest tier for the primary time.

To discover out extra concerning the groups, view Cyclingnews’ complete 2024 Women’s WorldTour team-by-team information.

The girls’s groups now face a relegation system as the game’s governing physique launched a brand new ‘sporting’ requirement, which added collectively every crew’s UCI factors throughout the 2022 and 2023 seasons. However, this new factors requirement was considered alongside the opposite 4 standards: administrative, moral, monetary, and organisational. 

The UCI launched minimal salaries for Women’s WorldTeams in 2020, and people elevated to €35,000 (employed) / €57,400 (self-employed) in 2024. The wage construction for a brand new skilled elevated to €29,270 (employed) / €47,986 (self-employed).

The highest-ranked three Continental girls’s groups on the UCI World Ranking obtain computerized invites, whereas the remaining Continental girls’s groups are invited on the discretion of the organisers. A most of 24 groups are permitted to start out every occasion on the Women’s WorldTour.

For stage races of six phases and extra of the UCI Women’s WorldTour, such because the Giro d’Italia Women, Tour de France Femmes, La Vuelta Femenina, Tour of Scandinavia, Simac Ladies Tour, and Women’s Tour, groups will begin with seven riders and two crew assist automobiles.

Points

2024 Women’s WorldTour – Points

Points are awarded for the ultimate classification of every occasion in keeping with the next scale to the highest 40 positioned riders. The rider with probably the most factors within the particular person classification wears the sequence chief’s jersey.

For crew time trial occasions and phases, the factors on the dimensions are awarded to the crew. These factors are then divided equally between the riders ending the occasion or the stage. Stages and half-stages provide a most of fifty and a minimal of six factors to the highest 10 positioned riders. Points awarded for phases are recorded on the final day of the occasion. 

A rider who wears a race chief’s jersey on every stage is awarded eight factors.

On the ultimate classification, the occasion’s high 3 greatest younger riders (under-23) are awarded 6, 4, and a couple of factors. 

The crew classifications embrace each Women’s WorldTeams and Women’s Continental groups. The crew classification is calculated by including the person classification factors scored by all of the riders of the crew within the UCI Women’s WorldTour particular person rating.

More data concerning the Women’s WorldTour will be discovered under.

Races

Women’s WorldTour – Guide to the races

Women’s Tour Down Under – January 12014, Australia

The Women’s Tour Down Under, which was cancelled in 2021 and 2022 as a result of pandemic – was the season opener in January and has been elevated to the highest tier of races for the primary time because it started in 2016. The three-day race is held yearly in and round Adelaide and, for the primary time, features a finale on Willunga Hill in 2024.

Cadel Evans Road Race – January 27, Australia

The Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race returned in 2023 after two years of absence as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, but it surely has shaped a part of the Women’s WorldTour since 2020. 

UAE Tour Women – February 8-11, United Arab Emirates

The inaugural occasion was held in 2023 as the ladies’s peloton headed to the Middle East for the four-day race, which gives three dash alternatives and a summit end on stage 3 atop Jebel Hafeet.

Spring Classics

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad – February 24, Belgium

The long-running Classics curtain-raiser Omloop het Nieuwsblad joined the WorldTour for its 18th version as a part of ‘opening weekend’ final yr. Flanders Classics at present oversees six of the preferred Spring Classics, starting with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Gent-Wevelgem, Dwars door Vlaanderen, Tour of Flanders, Scheldeprijs and Brabantse Pijl. 

Strade Bianche Women – March 2, Italy

After the Spring Classics opener at Omloop het Nieuwsblad, the Women’s WorldTour resumes at Strade Bianche in Siena, Italy. The race takes riders onto the white gravel roads routed all through the scenic Tuscany area and ending on the Piazza del Campo in Siena. 

Ronde van Drenthe Women – March 10, Netherlands

The sprinter-friendly route between Assen and Hoogeveen is made up of a sequence of loops over cobbled sectors and 4 journeys up the VAM Berg, with 50km to the end line. Riders who’ve traditionally achieved properly on this race are highly effective one-day specialists on flatter terrain.

Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio – March 17, Italy

The sequence headed again to Italy for the Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio. The girls’s discipline historically races by way of the hills surrounding Cittiglio earlier than ending on 17.8-kilometre circuits across the metropolis. Each lap features a climb by way of Orino, however the wide-open roads to the end line usually cater to a decreased group dash.

Classic Brugge-De Panne Women – March 21, Belgium

This is a race historically properly suited to sprinters. The route begins in Brugge and passes by way of Leeuw, Koekelare and Schoorbakke, after which the competition strikes on to 2 ending circuits in De Panne.

Gent-Wevelgem Women – March 24, Belgium

The second of six Flanders Classics occasions after Omloop het Nieuwsblad, Gent-Wevelgem is without doubt one of the flatter one-day races and usually sees a conflict of the sprinters. The begin of the race was moved from Ypres’ Grote Markt to the Menin Gate and included a number of fundamental climbs, such because the Beneberg, Kemmelberg and Monteberg en path to the end in Wevelgem.

Tour of Flanders Women – March 31, Belgium

The Tour of Flanders, one of the crucial prestigious of the Spring Classics, begins and ends in Oudenaarde. It covers a mix of cobbled sectors and steep climbs, together with the extra decisive climbs close to the top of the race – Kruisberg/Hotond, Oude Kwaremont, and the Paterberg – earlier than the end line in Oudenaarde.

Paris-Roubaix Femmes – April 6, France

The inaugural Paris-Roubaix Femmes in 2021 was a day written into the historical past books for each girls’s biking and for the first winner of the Paris-Roubaix Femmes – Lizzie Deignan.  Her teammate, Elisa Longo Borghini, adopted up with one other win for Trek-Segafredo within the 2022 version and Alison Jackson (EF) received in 2023. The 116km route from Denain to the Roubaix Velodrome contains 17 sectors of cobbled roads, with two of the pavé sectors rated on the most issue stage – Mons-en-Pévèle and the Carrefour de l’Arbre.

Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition – April 14, Netherlands

The first of the three Ardennes Classics. The race begins and finishes in Maastricht and features a hilly course that finishes on three 17.8-kilometre circuits that function the Geulhemmerberg, Bemelerberg and Cauberg. From the highest of the Cauberg, there may be roughly 1.7km to the end line.

La Flèche Wallonne Femmes – April 17, Belgium

La Flèche Wallonne is the oldest and the second of the three one-day races that type the ladies’s Ardennes Classics. The sequence has solely been in place for ladies since 2017, when Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition made its return after a 14-year hiatus, adopted by the long-running La Flèche Wallonne and the debut of Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The one-day girls’s race is famed for its finale on the Mur de Huy, which the ladies’s peloton climbs 3 times. Now-retired Anna van der Breggen received a report seven consecutive titles at La Flèche Wallonne.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes – April 21, Belgium

Liège-Bastogne-Liège concludes the Ardennes Classics week earlier than riders flip their consideration to the stage racing season. The race began in Bastogne and, for the primary time final yr, ascended the Côte de Mont-le-Soie, earlier than tackling the Côte de Wanne and Côte de la Haute-Levée. The remaining climbs, Côte de La Redoute and Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, had been tackled earlier than the end in Liège.

Stage Races

La Vuelta Femenina –  April 29-May 5, Spain

In a significant shake-up for the previous Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta, organisers modified its title to La Vuelta Feminina, expanded to seven phases, and moved to May in 2023. The occasion began as a one-day race in Madrid in 2015 and expanded to 2 phases in 2018, and a 3rd stage was added in 2020. The race was additional expanded in 2021 to 4 phases, and in 2022 to 5 phases, and 7 phases in 2023 and 2024.

Itzulia Women – May 10-12, Spain

In its third version of the Women’s WorldTour, hosted by the identical organiers of the one-day race in Clásica San Sebastián, the race provide three difficult phases by way of the mountainous Spanish Basque Country. It is organised by OCETA, which additionally runs the long-standing six-day Itzulia Basque Country males’s stage race.

Vuelta a Burgos Feminas – May 16-19, Spain

Vuelta a Burgos Feminas was upgraded to the Women’s WorldTour in 2021 and now concludes the triple top-tier stage races provided in May with 4 hilly phases.

The three top-tier stage races are held together with a powerful sequence of one-day races within the nation that embrace Emakumeen Nafarroako Women’s Elite Classics, Navarra Women’s Elite Classics, Gran Premio Ciudad de Eibar, Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria, and extra.

RideLondon Classique – May 24-26, Great Britain

RideLondon Classique has reworked from its origins as a one-day occasion right into a three-day race. RideLondon has been held as a one-day race and was added to the inaugural Women’s WorldTour calendar in 2016, however was cancelled in each 2020 and 2021. The RideLondon Classique grew to become a three-day occasion in 2022 and continued with this format in 2024.

Women’s Tour – June 4-9, Great Britain

Organisers, SweetSpot, introduced parity to the occasion’s prize fund with the boys’s Tour of Britain, which was set at €97,880 throughout six days of racing in 2019. They additionally introduced a five-year plan to supply dwell protection of the ladies’s race, which is required to be a part of the top-tier sequence. However, resulting from challenges surrounding the pandemic, they had been pressured to scale back the prize fund. Organisers goal to return to prize cash parity. The 2023 version was cancelled, and the six-day race returns in 2024.

Tour de Suisse Women – June 15-18, Switzerland

Taking place in jap Switzerland, the Tour de Suisse Women was held in 2023 for the primary time in 4 editions as a Women’s WorldTour occasion. The first Tour de Suisse for ladies was held i n 2001 as a five-day occasion, however went away for 20 years earlier than relaunching as a 2.1 ranked girls’s race happening on the opening weekend of the boys’s eight-day WorldTour Tour de Suisse. In 2021, Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo) received the title, adopted in 2022 by Lucinda Brand (Trek-Segafredo). Marlen Reusser (Team SD Worx) received the general title in 2023.

Giro d’Italia Women – July 7-14, Italy

The Giro d’Italia Donne has been formally rebranded because the Giro d’Italia Women in 2024, with new race organiser RCS Sport taking up the administration of the race on a four-year contract by way of 2027. It will have fun its twenty fifth anniversary. The occasion historically gives 10 days of racing and iconic mountain passes such because the Stelvio, Zoncolan, Gavia, and Mortirolo. This yr’s race has been decreased to seven phases however will embrace a mountaintop end at Blockhaus.

Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift – August 12-18, France

The rebirth of the Tour de France avec Zwift marked a history-making second within the sport in the course of the 2022 season, and received by Annemiek van Vleuten. Once once more internet hosting the very best riders on this planet, in 2023, Demi Vollering secured the general victory. The third version of the fashionable incarnation of the ladies’s Tour de France can be held after the Paris Olympic Games with eight phases throughout seven days between Monday, August 12 and Sunday, August 18. Organisers provide a complete of 946.3km of racing that features three flat phases for the sprinters, one particular person time trial, two hilly phases, two mountain phases and a crowning conclusion atop the enduring Alpe d’Huez.

Late-season rounds

 Classic Lorient Agglomération – Trophée Ceratizit – August 24, France

It marks the start of the wind-down to the season, Classic Lorient Agglomération – Trophée CERATIZIT – higher often known as the GP de Plouay. Organisers launched a brand new parcour for the 2022 version with a 159.5km route that included a gap 127km loop. The race then completed on 2.5 laps of an 11.7km native circuit round Plouay.  The laps included 3 times the climb of Le Lezot (900m at 5.5%, 14% part) and two occasions la bosse de Rostervel (1,500m at 4.5%, 10% part). 

Tour of Scandinavia – August 27-September 1 – Norway/Denmark

Organisers of the previous Ladies Tour of Norway revealed their plans to maneuver forward with the long-awaited ‘Battle of the North’ in 2022. The occasion takes place throughout Denmark and Norway with a reputation change to the Tour of Scandinavia and has risen to turn out to be one of the crucial in style stage races with a mountaintop end at Norefjell.

Tour de Romandie – September 5-9, Switzerland

Now in its third version, the ladies’s model of the Tour de Romandie takes the peloton into the Swiss mountains. The girls’s four-day occasion marks the penultimate race of the top-tier sequence in Europe earlier than the peloton headed to China for the return of the Tour of Chongming Island and Tour of Guangxi.

Simac Ladies Tour – September October 8-13, Netherlands

The greatest stage race within the Netherlands, becoming a member of the Women’s WorldTour in 2017, and it’s heading into its twenty fourth version. Organisers yearly welcome the highest girls’s groups to compete in six days of late-season racing. Former winners embrace Leontien van Moorsel, Petra Rosner, Kristin Armstrong, and Annemiek van Vleuten, Lorena Wiebes, to call a couple of, whereas Marianne Vos has received the general title 4 occasions.

Tour of Chongming Island – October 15-17, China 

The Tour of Chongming Island returned after a three-year hiatus in 2023. The race has historically been well-suited to sprinters as a result of it contains three flat phases, and that was the case once more this yr. Although the race was usually held in May, it moved to an October date and was the final stage race of the season.

Tour of Guangxi – October 20, China

The Tour of Guangxi, additionally cancelled in 2020, 2021 and 2022, marked the conclusion of the 2023 Women’s WorldTour. In the final version held in 2019, the ladies raced 146 kilometres with a begin and end in Guilin. The route was primarily flat, and it catered to the sprinters.