As spring takes hold across Europe, the women's WorldTour moves into the peak of the Spring Classics, and behind Paris-Roubaix Femmes the Tour of Flanders represents the pinnacle of the season.
As usual, the race will treat us to ascents of the famed Koppenberg, Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg over the race's 163km route.
Last year, Lotte Kopecky made history as the first Belgian back-to-back winner of the Tour of Flanders in a dominant display, but that certainly doesn't make the race a foregone conclusion.
The field of this year's 21st edition has a striking strength in depth, and so here are Cyclingnews' key favourites in the women's race.
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Lotte Kopecky and Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime)
SD Worx arrives at the Tour of Flanders with a dream team that includes World Champion and two-time defending champion Lotte Kopecky and Tour de France winner Demi Vollering. The pair finished first and second in Oudenaarde last year.
Kopecky, also Belgium's double national champion, is very much the centrepiece of the cobbled Classic, where crowds will undoubtedly line the steep hellingen, cobblestone sectors and finish line straightaway just to watch her compete in the nation's most prized one-day race.
Back-to-back wins at Strade Bianche and Nokere Koerse, along with a pair of second places at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Trofeo Alfredo Binda, and fourth at Dwars door Vlaanderen, have shown that Kopecky is on track to reaching her peak form at the right time ahead of her targetted Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
Vollering is much more of a wildcard this year, having only raced at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (6th) and Strade Bianche (3rd), but she arrives fresh off of an altitude training camp and ready to compete at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Tour of Flanders followed by the Ardennes Classics, of which she won all three last year.
Together, Kopecky and Vollering form a tough-to-beat duo. The team also includes 2020 Tour of Flanders winner Chantal van den Broek-Blaak and European Champion Mischa Bredewold. With a team this powerful, the Tour of Flanders is SD Worx's race to lose.
Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike)
Marianne Vos' sparkling career palmares, Spring Classics experience, recent winning sprint at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, where she beat Lotte Kopecky in Ninvoe, and her victory at Dwars door Vlaanderen make her one of the favourites for the Tour of Flanders victory.
The multiple-time cross-discipline World Champion has won so many races during her career; in fact, there are very few races that she hasn't won. Her last victory at the Tour of Flanders was back in 2013 when she beat Ellen van Dijk, Emma Johansson, and Elisa Longo Borghini in a breakaway sprint in Oudenaarde.
Vos is a major player across the cobbled Classics, and we can anticipate that her goal is to peak through Dwars door Vlaanderen, a race she won, into the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
Fem van Empel has recovered from a hugely successful cyclocross campaign, during which she won a second consecutive world title, and is now turning her attention to the Spring Classics, where she gives Visma-Lease a Bike a potential second card to play at the Tour of Flanders.
Van Empel was expected to make her 2024 road season debut at Gent-Wevelgem, but she didn't start the race. The team said she wasn't quite yet ready to start the season, but she is still on the roster for Tour of Flanders. Although a podium at the biggest one-day Classics of the season would be a tough ask, Van Empel is one to watch nonetheless.
Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek)
Lidl-Trek also lines up with a powerful team that includes the 'two Elisas': Elisa Longo Borghini and Elisa Balsamo. Of the pair, Longo Borghini will likely be the one to watch at the Tour of Flanders.
The Italian Champion won the Tour of Flanders in 2015, and she finished third last year behind Kopecky and Vollering in Oudenaarde. This year, Longo Borghini has finished third at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, second at Strade Bianche and won Trofeo Oro in Euro. Although she finished 33rd at the recent Gent-Wevelgem, her teammate Elisa Balsamo was second. She was also recently in the decisive move and finished sixth at Dwars door Vlaanderen, where her teammate Shirin van Anrooij was second behind Vos.
The pair work well together and support one another on the varying terrain of the Spring Classics. The flatter races tend to better suit Balsamo, and the more challenging terrain shifts the target toward Longo Borghini.
Balsamo has had an outstanding start to this season with wins at Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Brugge-De Panne, and second places at Ronde van Drenthe and Gent-Wevelgem.
The team also have a powerful roster that includes Lizzie Deignan, Lucinda Brand, Shirin van Anrooij and Lauretta Hanson.
Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM)
Kasia Niewiadoma, the gravel World Champion, is always a contender for the Spring Classics, and she has once again shown her early-season strengths with a seventh at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and fourth at Strade Bianche.
She was devastated by her result in Siena, a testament to how much she loves that Italian one-day race and how many times she has been so close to victory: four times on the podium and nine times in the top 10.
At the Tour of Flanders, Niewiadoma has also finished in the top 10 on six occasions. Her highest place was last year, where she finished fifth in the breakaway sprint behind Kopecky, Vollering, Longo Borghini and Silvia Persico.
Canyon-SRAM also brings a strong team with multiple options, including Chloé Dygert, Elisa Chabbey and Soraya Paladin. Dygert, the individual time trial World Champion, returned to the Spring Classics after an early season injury at Brugge-De Panne, where she finished a promising sixth place, and she was then 36th at Gent-Wevelgem.
She competed in just one other Classics event during her four-year term with Canyon-SRAM, riding at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2022. However, she suffered from leg pain following that race and then spent 14 months recovering from a variety of health issues.
It will be interesting to see her progress at the Tour of Flanders and as the season continues toward the Paris Olympics, where she will focus on both road and track.
Pfeiffer Georgi (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL)
One of the peloton's most versatile riders, Pfeiffer Georgi, is both Charlotte Kool's trusted lead-out in the sprints and Team dsm-firmenich PostNL's most valuable card to play in the Spring Classics.
She had a breakthrough season last year, winning Classic Brugge-De Panne, the British National Championships for the second time in her career, and Binche-Chimay-Binche.
She's had a strong start to this season, too, taking third at Omloop van het Hageland and fifth at Trofeo Alfredo Binda.
At the Tour of Flanders, Georgi is strong enough to both ignite a successful breakaway and be part of the winning front group. A fast finisher in her own right, watch for the British Champion to be among the late-race contenders into Oudenaarde.
Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck)
Multi-discipline rider Puck Pieterse wasn't actually expecting to be racing the Tour of Flanders when she started her road block, but given how well it has gone, extending just a little to include the cobbled Classic became an irresistible proposition.
The rider, who will be targeting the Olympic Games on the mountain bike, did just a couple of UCI road races last season. Even then, she came away with a fifth at Strade Bianche.
This year, however, she has ramped it up another level. The Dutch rider's slightly extended block has included six races, five top tens, and two podiums. Given that run, there is every reason for the rider, who will focus on the mountain bike after Dwars door Vlaanderen, where she finished fifth, and Tour of Flanders, to carry high hopes for Sunday.
“With how it’s going now, of course, you have to dream of the highest, and I think we have a really good team,” she told Cyclingnews. “We worked really well together here at Gent-Wevelgem, so I think even winning is possible.”
Arlenis Sierra (Movistar)
The Ronde is a race where Arlenis Sierra has finished in the top ten in the past two editions, and her start to the season indicates that the Cuban Movistar rider is heading into the race with some solid form.
The 31-year-old's block of Spanish racing yielded two second places, and she has also taken a strong fifth at Nokere Koerse and sixth at Gent Wevelgem. She has yet to claim a win this season or at one of the big Women's WorldTour Classics through her career, so she is perhaps more of a long shot than a favourite. However, particularly given that she got fourth in 2022, the podium seems a possibility.
Sierra is also not the only option at Movistar, which is still looking for its first Women's WorldTour win of the season. Emma Norsgaard has been ramping up toward the spring and has so far delivered some promising results.
The 24-year-old's campaign started with an 11th at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and fifth at Omloop van het Hageland and also included seventh place at Nokere Koerse and Brugge-De Panne.
Silvia Persico (UAE Team ADQ)
Last year, Silvia Persico was just one spot off the podium at the Tour of Flanders after coming in for a sprint behind winner Kopecky with a group of seven. Then she was one of the riders her rivals in the group were watching closely as the fast finish approached.
No doubt the 26-year-old will be determined, if the opportunity arises again, to go at least one better this time. The 2023 De Brabantse Pijl winner is dialling back her GC ambitions this year, given her Olympic focus, and targeting one-day events and stages instead, so this could help her deliver at the Ronde.
So far this month her best results are an eighth at Trofeo Oro and Trofeo Alfredo Binda. Dwars door Vlaanderen could also provide another indication of whether she is ready to ramp it up another level at the Tour of Flanders.
There are also other options for the team, with Chiara Consonni having proven a powerful force in March, stepping up to the podium first at Drentse Acht van Westerveld with a second and then most recently at Gent-Wevelgem with a third.
On top of that, there was a fourth at Brugge De Panne and seventh at Dwars door Vlaanderen, so the rider clearly is delivering the speed needed to make a mark at the end of a long, hard day of racing.
Thalita de Jong (Lotto Dstny Ladies)
The former cyclocross world champion has shifted into her new team, Lotto Dstny Ladies, and immediately started with a slew of results inside the top ten; in fact, Thalita de Jong's worst result of the year so far is 15th.
The 30-year-old's results also include second places at GP Oetingen and on a stage of the Tour de Normandie, plus claimed the points classification. At her latest race, Gent Wevelgem, it was an eighth.
De Jong will be riding her fifth Tour of Flanders in 2024, but it's been three years since she last lined up. She hasn't finished in the top 40 at the race before, but this season, as the senior member of the Belgian squad, she seems to be flourishing, so anything seems possible.
Letizia Paternoster (Liv AlUla Jayco)
Ruby Roseman-Gannon had a clear target on the spring Classics and would have been a key contender for the team at Tour of Flanders, but after a hard crash at Nokere Koerse, she was left riding through the line in eleventh place with huge streaks of blood running down both legs.
The Australian champion hasn’t raced since and posted on Instagram over the weekend that “I’m still unable to ride and therefore I’ll miss the rest of the Flemish classics.”
However, the team has other options, one obvious one being Letizia Paternoster. She is good on short explosive climbs and brings her track-honed turn of speed to the sprint.
The Italian has shown her strength this month with a fourth at Ronde van Drenthe and a third at Dwars door Vlaanderen, and she also has history through this patch. The rider hit the podium of Gent-Wevelgem in 2019, and when she joined the Australian squad last season, she delivered a trio of top tens last year, coming sixth at Omloop van het Hageland, ninth at Ronde van Drenthe and tenth at Nokere Koerse.
Her Tour of Flanders debut also came in 2023, though it was an 81st place finish, however with another year of experience under the belt and Roseman-Gannon injured hopes are likely to be much higher this year.
Honorable mentions
- Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Cannondale)
- Maria Giuliani Confalonieri (Uno-X)
- Vittoria Guazzini (FDJ-Suez)
