Ciao and Grazie for reading this week’s Wheel Talk Newsletter. How’s everyone feeling after the Giro d’Italia Women? Much like the riders, I need a nap or two! It was quite the race, and has me really looking forward to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in *checks notes* JUST A FEW WEEKS. Wild. This season has flown by.
Wheel Talk
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This Giro was, possibly, a turning point for the race. The first run by RCS, and from the sounds of it the on-the-ground organization has improved from previous editions. I especially felt the course was really well-thought out and gave us some fantastic battles, especially throughout the final few days. They really left the GC battle to the end, similar to the Tour the last two years, and the system seems to work well.
Before the finer moments of the Giro get elapsed by the upcoming Olympics, and then the Tour, I’d like to look back on some of my favourite moments from the race.
Niamh Fisher-Black winning stage 3
On the WT podcast all year we’ve been saying that Fisher-Black looks like a different rider this year. She seems more well-rounded, and more grounded, and she proved herself on the third stage of the Giro. The win was awesome, but what made it so fun to watch was the Kiwi’s commitment. She rode fully on feel, on vibes, and she walked away with a Giro stage win.
Barbara Guarischi’s lead-out
Lotte Kopecky’s win on stage 5 was, as I said on the podcast, inevitable, but what really catapulted the victory was her SD Worx-Protime teammates’ lead-out. While the teams around her fell apart Elena Cecchini and Barbara Guarischi held firm and Guarischi in particular made sure that Kopecky was where she needed to be. Had the roles been reversed, Baby G would have won the stage with that acceleration.
Aussies impress in opening ITT
Longo Borghini may have won the opening time trial but she was flanked by two Aussies on the podium. Grace Brown in second (by only one second!) and Longo Borghini’s own teammate Brodie Chapman close behind in third. It was a great performance from both riders. Brown heads to the Olympics as a favourite for gold, while Chapman continues to display her good form.
Full stage 1 race report here.
Liane Lippert back on the top step
Lippert finished the 2023 season with a lot of expectations on her shoulders. With the retirement of Annemiek van Vleuten, the German stepped in as “top dog,” Movistar’s future GC hopeful. She won a stage of the Tour last year, and all signs were pointing to a great season for her. However, an injury during the offseason took her out of competition until the Vuelta a España Femenina in April. When she returned she still needed to build back into form, and with such a great 2023 it wasn’t easy for her to be behind her goals. But at the end of the sixth stage, she displayed her rising form by winning the stage from a three-rider move.
Read the full stage 6 race report here.
Neve Bradbury’s Blockhaus win
The young Australian’s win on the queen stage was yet another step in her progression. Many young riders who came into the Giro targeting the GC only to lose 1:47 in the opening time trial would falter under expectation and pressure, but not Neve. It’s a testament not only to her talent and strength but also to how Canyon-SRAM has developed her as a rider both physically and mentally.
She took advantage of Kopecky and Longo Borghini’s fascination with each other and used it to her advantage. Her attack was perfectly timed, and her effort afterwards was nothing short of incredible. There is a lot more still to come from this rider.
Stage report can be found here.
Lotte Kopecky: what can’t she do?
Riding to sixth on the Col du Tourmalet in last year’s TdFF put ideas in Kopecky’s head. Ideas about what kind of cyclist she can be. And boy have we seen her grow as a rider in the last year. She went from being a track rider, with a breakthrough win at the Giro in 2020, to being a genuine GC contender in literally any stage race, no matter the terrain. No one will be saying she can’t contest a Tour de France now. It’s Kopecky’s world, we’re just living in it. Watch out Vos, Kopecky is coming for your title (of G.O.A.T.).
Elisa Longo Borghini in pink
Elisa Longo Borghini won the Giro.
The face of Italian women in cycling, at least for the non-Italian world, it’s hard to believe Longo Borghini only took her first stage win in 2020. The Giro was one of the first big stage races Longo Borghini raced in 2011, the early days of her career. As an Italian, the race means something special to Elisa, and to all the Italians who race it or watch it.
Not only has Longo Borghini won the Giro, but she also broke the Dutch/American winning streak of 14 years. Longo Borghini is displaying the best form of her career (so far), and it was still a tight fight. But she stamped her authority on the race in the final 100 metres, proving that the Giro was hers, the Maglia Rosa was hers.
It’s a win that will rank high on her list of achievements far after she’s retired from the sport and a trophy she will cherish, but she also set an example for every young Italian in the peloton and watching at home. Never give up, keep fighting, and one second means nothing.
What were your favourite moments from this year’s Giro? Drop them in the comments!
Racing continues…
At the Olympic Games in Paris!
There are a few smaller races going on before July 27th, the day of the Olympic time trial, but the next time the big names will roll up to a start line will be in Paris. I will dive deeper into the route for the time trial and the road race (August 4th) in next week’s newsletter and in a separate piece on the site. Stay tuned.
Wheel Talk Podcast
It was a joy to bring you all daily podcasts about the Giro, with a rotating cast of co-hosts who all brought their own flavour, and a bunch of audio diaries from riders in the race. If you missed them, you can go back and check them out on the Wheel Talk Podcast feed. We kept each episode under 30 minutes for ease of listening, especially with about 50 episodes around the Tour de France coming out daily.
I especially want to thank our audio diarists throughout the race: Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek), Urška Žigart (Liv AlUla Jayco), Josie Nelson (DSM Firmenich-PostNL), Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime), Maike van der Duin and Alice Towers (Canyon-SRAM), Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez), and Mareille Meijering (Movistar).
We are off this week, but we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next Tuesday.
Let’s Discuss
The cancellation of Ronde van Drenthe.
On Friday the news dropped that one of the longest-standing races on the women’s calendar, Ronde van Drenthe, would be no more. It’s perhaps not the most exciting race of the spring, but it has been a fixture for the women for years, long before we even had a Tour of Flanders or Strade Bianche.
I asked José Been to talk us through the cancellation since she is much more versed in Dutch racing and race organization:
The Ronde van Drenthe and the Drentse 8 won’t be organized anymore, race promoter Femmy van Issum announced Friday 12 July. The Ronde van Drenthe is one of the oldest Women’s WorldTour races on the calendar and always takes place in mid-March. It was still on the calendar for 2025 but that changed with Friday’s news.
Organizing bike racing in a densely populated country like the Netherlands is proving more and more difficult. The Simac Ladies Tour and Amstel Gold Race are the only WorldTour races left on the calendar. Veenendaal-Veenendaal is the only other women’s UCI 1.1 race left. These organizers also face a myriad of problems. In short: rising costs, environmental protections, no police capacity, lack of volunteers and a general political and public trend against events on the public road.
Police capacity is a big issue in the Netherlands. The number of police officers who have the appropriate license to accompany a bike race on a motorbike has been cut by 25% in recent years. The division north, where Drenthe is, has indicated in 2022 there is no capacity at all. Other regions like Limburg, where the Amstel Gold Race is, still have police on site but they will also inevitably move to a circuit-based classic in the near future.
The lack of police capacity and rising costs already ended the Ronde van Drenthe for men in 2023. The organizers, who always prioritized the women’s race over the men’s event, continued on a closed circuit in 2024 but that is also not feasible anymore.
The Netherlands is a country that has a population density among the highest in Europe (430 persons per square kilometre). Simply stated, there is no room or political will to close off public roads anymore. On top of that, there is a big problem with nitrogen deposition due to intensive farming. Next to that the Netherlands, and especially Drenthe, have quite a few Natura2000 areas which have legal protections. To be able to organize any event you need to hand in a nitrogen/environmental impact report that is over 100 pages long. These reports also cost a significant sum of money.
The province of Drenthe decided to not give any subsidy anymore to the Ronde van Drenthe in 2025 and that was the final nail in its proverbial coffin. Femmy van Issum and her husband Huub heavily rely on volunteers and local sponsorship. The lack of provincial support can’t be overcome.
Van Issum, who is 84 years old, promised her father on his deathbed to continue his legacy. The first men’s race took place in 1960 and the last one in 2023. The first women’s race was, officially, in 2007 and the last one, won by Lorena Wiebes, in 2024. Van Issum will try to honour her promise to her father with a cyclosportive bearing the name of her father, Albert Achterhes.
Another women’s race that quietly ended was the UCI U23 Nations Cup at Watersley. They will only have a women’s junior race anymore.
A picture worth a couple of words
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift recently appeared on Gracie Abrams’s new album ‘The Secret of Us.’ She featured on the fifth track (IYKYK) us. produced by Swift, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.
Abrams opened for a number of Swift’s US Eras Tour shows, and the two are known to be friends due to their work with Dessner. Like many young artists these days, Abrams says she grew up listening to Swift and learned a lot from her storytelling-like way of writing songs.
Until next time
Some bad news to close out this week. Marlen Reusser announced on her Instagram that she will not be competing in the Paris Olympics due to lingering effects from a viral infection.
“Unfortunately, I have to announce that I will not be able to take part in the Olympic Games in Paris,” Reusser said.
“I’m suffering from a post-infectious syndrome, caused by a viral infection. For this reason I have not been able to train in the last few weeks / months. I had a Covid-infection at the end of February, a crash with fractures in Flanders end of March, and again one or more viral infections in May.
“With the World Championships coming up in Switzerland, my other big goal, I’m trying to do everything I can to recover and hopefully still prepare myself well. It remains to be seen if it will work out.”
With Elisa Chabbey suffering a fracture in her foot at the Giro and now Reusser out, the Swiss team’s initially strong four-rider roster is now looking down two very strong women, although as of now it’s unclear if Chabbey will compete. All the best to Reusser; I know we all want to see her on the start at her home World Championships in September.
Thank you for reading this week’s WT Newsletter. We will be back next week with a regular podcast, until then enjoy the final week of the men’s Tour. Surely there will be a day the breakaway gets a chance. Those are the stages I am most looking forward to.
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