Welcome to Escape Collective. Please select your language.
Please note that this is an automated translation and it will not be perfect. All articles have been written in English and if anything appears to not make sense, please double check in English.
It took 59 years but last week, finally, the best young riders in the women’s peloton got to race the Tour de l’Avenir.
First raced in 1961, the ‘Tour of the Future’ has long been the premier stage race for U23 men and a reliable barometer of which young riders will go on to become top pros (former winners include Tadej Pogačar, Egan Bernal and Nairo Quintana). Once the men’s race finished their eight-stage last week (with 19-year-old Mexican Isaac del Toro taking top honours) the world’s best female U23 riders took to the roads of France for five days of hard racing without those pesky elite riders to spoil their fun.
Many of the race’s top names would have been familiar to anyone who’s followed women’s WorldTour racing this season – the likes of Shirin van Anrooij, Gaia Realini, Antonia Niedermaier, and Anna Shackley were all there, and all riding well.
Also there was photographer Anouk Flesch who filed the selection of photos you can see in the gallery below. These images aren’t a comprehensive breakdown of how each stage of the race unfolded, but rather a selection of moments throughout the five days of this historic race.
A few weeks ago, Germany’s Antonia Niedermaier won the U23 women’s time trial at the World Championships in Glasgow. The opening stage of the Tour de l’Avenir Femmes will be one of her only opportunities to wear the rainbow skinsuit over the next 12 months, such is the dearth of U23-only races on the calendar.The 20-year-old made the most of her opportunity, winning the stage and becoming the first overall leader of the Tour de l’Avenir Femmes.Four road stages followed the opening time trial. You’ll note that the Tour de l’Avenir is raced by national teams, rather than trade teams.The home nation of France was headlined by Cédrine Kerbaol, winner of the best young rider classification at the recent Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (seen on the right here).Niedermaier’s win in the stage 1 time trial saw her lead the race all the way through to the final, mountainous stage. The Giro Donne stage winner is quickly becoming one of the most exciting prospects in the peloton.Shirin van Anrooij (centre) doesn’t get many chances to wear her U23 European champion’s jersey, but she did at the Tour de l’Avenir (in both the time trial and the road stages). After finishing second on the hilly fourth stage, Van Anrooij was third overall coming into the final day of racing.Stage 4 belonged to Gaia Realini though. On a hilly day to Megève, Realini got away on her own and won the stage by 41 seconds. The diminutive Italian has been one of the revelations of the season, winning a handful of races (including her first WorldTour win at the Vuelta Femenina), and climbing with the very best in the world. Niedermaier finished fourth on that penultimate stage, ensuring she’d wear yellow into the final stage.Van Anrooij saved her best for the final stage.Niedermaier lost more than six minutes on the final stage to drop out of yellow. She said on social media later that it was “A bad day to have a bad day… A little bit disappointed that I wasn’t able to defend the yellow jersey today but the other girls were stronger! ?”On a day that featured two big climbs, plus a smaller one towards the finish, Realini was again among the best climbers.But ultimately, it was her Lidl-Trek teammate, Van Anrooij, who dominated the final stage. The Dutchwoman rode away alone …… to win the stage by more than two minutes and claim overall victory in the first-ever Tour de l’Avenir Femmes.
