Well, it’s finally here – Opening Weekend, the start of the Spring Classics. We’ve had a handful of Women’s WorldTour races already this season – the Tour Down Under and Cadel’s Race in Australia, plus the UAE Tour – but to many fans of the sport, it’s Saturday’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, held in the Flanders region of northwest Belgium, that really signals the start of the racing season proper.
Before we go any further, if you’re looking for a preview of men’s Opening Weekend, our man Dane Cash has you covered. Stay posted to Escape for his story, coming soon. Today, though, we’ll be focusing on the women’s ‘Omloop’ and the significance of what is the first European WorldTour race of the year.
The favourites
By way of a quick teaser, here are our favourites for Saturday’s race. More on these riders in a moment.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Demi Vollering
⭐⭐⭐⭐: Lorena Wiebes
⭐⭐⭐: Marlen Reusser, Puck Pieterse
⭐⭐: Thalita de Jong, Maike van der Duin, Mischa Bredewold
⭐: Alex Manly, Liane Lippert
The course
The women’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad has been running since 2006 (as Omloop Het Volk until 2009) but this is the longest edition yet at 137.9 km. As usual the race runs from Gent through to Ninove and it’s a bunch of cobbled sectors and short, punchy climbs that define the race.
The first 80 km are reasonably easy, with no noted climbs and only two cobbled sectors. Which means that almost all of the race’s challenges – eight climbs and another four cobbled sectors – are packed into the final 60 km. Just take a look at the back half of the profile here:
The Edelareberg kicks off the recognised climbs, just inside 60 km to go, and from there the challenges come thick and fast. The most significant section though, comes inside the final 20 km, with the last two climbs of the race. As in every edition since 2018, the riders will face the legendary Muur-Kapelmuur climb, which peaks 15 km from the finish, and finally the Bosberg, which tops out with 11 km to go.
What can we expect?
In short: attacks aplenty and a whole lot of attrition.
You can probably bank on an early breakaway with a handful of lesser-known riders, but that should be over by the time the proper climbing begins. Those climbs in the back half of the race will play host to a whole lot of aggressive riding making for a thoroughly entertaining affair.
The Muur-Kapelmuur and Bosberg climbs are particularly great launchpads – being so close to the finish – so regardless of whether it’s a solo rider or a small group that comes to the line, expect those climbs to have done plenty of damage.
And it is likely to be a solo rider or small group that reaches Ninove at the front. Of the past 10 editions of the women’s OHN:
- Six editions were won solo
- Two editions came down to a group of two
- One was contested from a group of four (last year, when Marianne Vos won)
- One finished up with a group of 25 riders (back in 2018)
So who are the riders we expect to be vying for the win on Saturday? Let’s start with who isn’t going to be in the mix.
Notable absentees
OHN might be the first WorldTour race of the European season, but that doesn’t mean all the biggest names are going to be there. In fact, curiously, all of the top four from last year’s race will be absent: Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike), world champion Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime), Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ), and Shirin van Anrooij (Lidl-Trek).
Why won't they be there? Vos, Kopecky, and Longo Borghini are all starting their Classics campaigns a little later in March (more on that below) while Van Anrooij is still recovering from iliac artery surgery in October.
Even with those notable absentees, it’s still a stacked startlist with a lot of stars in attendance. Here’s who we’ve got our eye on.
Riders to watch
Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) has never won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad but she’s probably the rider to beat on Saturday. That’s partly because the last two winners, Vos and Kopecky, won’t be there, but also: this is Demi Vollering we're talking about.
The Dutchwoman was second in 2022 – beaten in a two-up sprint by Annemiek van Vleuten after the pair got away on the Bosberg. If the day goes as she’s drawn it up, Vollering will get separation on one of those final two climbs again, this time continuing on to the finish on her own. Given her punchy finish she can also win it from a small group if she needs to, depending on who’s there with her.
Based on how her new FDJ-Suez teammates rode for her at Setmana Valenciana the other week, Vollering will be very well supported on the day. Riders like Elise Chabbey and Amber Kraak will give the French team other cards to play too. It will be fascinating, though, to see Vollering come up against her former team SD Worx-Protime and how that plays out in the rough and tumble of the Classics.
Speaking of SD Worx-Protime, Vollering’s former teammate Lorena Wiebes has a great shot on Saturday. The world’s best sprinter already has three wins for the year (in four race days), she’s got a great team around her (Mischa Bredewold is a threat in her own right), and she’s been second and third here in the past. If Wiebes is in the front group at the finish, it's unlikely she'll be beaten, which of course means the other teams will do whatever they can to distance her.
That mightn’t be as easy as it sounds. In recent years Wiebes has been climbing increasingly well, and 20th on the queen stage of the recent UAE Tour – which finished with a 10.9 km climb! – was yet more evidence of that. Don’t be surprised if Wiebes is up to every challenge the more favoured climbers throw at her on Saturday and she takes her first OHN win.
Another SD Worx-Protime alumna worth noting is Marlen Reusser (Movistar). No longer racing in the shadows of Vollering or Kopecky, the Swiss powerhouse now has much more scope to ride for her own chances. And her chances on Saturday are good. While not a pure climber by any stretch, Reusser has watts for days and is a proven performer in the hilly Belgian one-days (see Gent-Wevelgem 2023). Coming off a one-day win in Spain, and second overall at the Valenciana stage race a few weeks back, Reusser is in promising form. A solo attack is her best shot at a win.
Movistar also has a great option from a reduced group in Liane Lippert. The German finished top-five in all four stages of the recent Valenciana stage race and so brings some promising form into the start of Classics season.
Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) will make her road season debut on Saturday and, honestly, it would be a surprise if she didn’t finish deep inside the top 10. This is a race that very much suits the 22-year-old – tough, with a bunch of short, steep climbs, with the possibility of ending in a small-group sprint. Remember the ‘Liège stage’ of last year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, when Pieterse beat Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) in a three-up sprint? Pieterse can absolutely do similar on Saturday.
On Niewiadoma and her team: it would be a surprise if Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto weren’t well represented at the pointy end of Saturday's race. Niewiadoma herself should climb well enough to make almost any move, Soraya Paladin is likely to be aggressive, and fast-finisher Maike van der Duin could be dangerous from a small group.
The big animators of last year’s race, Lidl-Trek, mightn’t have Longo Borghini or Van Anrooij this time around, but the US team does have a quality line-up. New recruits Emma Norsgaard and Anna Henderson will be joined by Ellen van Dijk, Lauretta Hanson and more, and will surely be looking to get on the front foot again.
Other riders worth keeping track of include one of last year’s most improved riders, Thalita de Jong (Human Powered Health), the versatile Italian Silvia Persico – who was excellent at the UAE Tour, and possibly AG Insurance-Soudal’s Aussie recruit, Alex Manly.
The weather
Racing in Belgium in late February/early March tends to be a pretty chilly affair and the weather this Saturday fits that description. There’s no rain forecast, but the top temperature looks like it will be a relatively balmy 8 ºC (48 ºF). Unfortunately, for those hoping to see some crosswind action, the forecast is only for very light winds. Boo.
How to watch it
First up: if you haven’t already checked out Joe Lindsey’s guide to watching all the bike racing in 2025, please go and do that, then bookmark the page for your convenience throughout the year. According to that page, the women’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad will be broadcast live via FloBikes in the USA and Canada, and via TNT Sports in the UK. If you’re in Australia, well, it doesn't look like it's on TV anywhere – SBS, FloBikes and StayLive aren’t showing it – and so VPNing into a territory that does have coverage might be your best bet.
Storylines to watch as the Classics begin
Given OHN is the start of the Spring Classics, it’s only natural to look ahead at the Classics period as a whole (the Classics end with Liège-Bastogne-Liège on April 27). Here are some specific questions you might have had:
What does OHN mean for the rest of the Classics?
This is the first real chance this season to see how the Classics riders have come out of the off-season, and how those riders’ Classics squads are working together. For riders who are on new teams this year – not least Vollering and Reusser – that’s particularly relevant ahead of the bigger races ahead.
While OHN is a WorldTour race in its own right, it’s still something of a dress rehearsal for bigger one-days, especially the Tour of Flanders. Things going well on Saturday – on some of the same roads as De Ronde – will bode well for the weeks and months ahead.
When are we going to see Kopecky and Vos racing?
Both Vos and Kopecky are due to start their 2025 seasons at the inaugural Milan-San Remo Donne on March 22. That's shaping up to be a great race with a lot of the peloton's biggest names in attendance.
Speaking of which: are we going to see Vollering vs Kopecky vs Vos vs Elisa Longo Borghini this spring? And if so, when?
We sure are. As a starting point, be sure to check out Kit Nicholson’s great piece about when the big names of the Women’s WorldTour are likely to face off, and what that means for the Classics. But as a quick summary, it looks like all four of those superstars will be at Milan-San Remo Donne and Amstel Gold Race (April 20). If you’re just interested in the much-anticipated Kopecky vs Vollering face-off, well, you’ll also be able to see those former teammates duke it out at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
A few other quick notes on the subject of rider calendars:
- Anna van der Breggen will be at all three Ardennes races (you might recall she won Flèche Wallonne seven times in a row).
- Another returning roadie, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), will be at Strade Bianche (as one of the favourites?), MSR, Amstel Gold, and Liège.
Does the women’s peloton get two races on ‘Opening Weekend’ like the men?
Yep! The women don’t race Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne on Sunday like the men do, but they have a different one-day race instead: the UCI 1.1 Omloop van het Hageland. It’s not as hard or as prestigious as OHN and it tends to end in a sprint more often than its WorldTour sibling (although, Kristen Faulkner won solo there last year by nearly two minutes).
Many riders will do both races over the weekend but there are some differences between the two startlists. Here’s the startlist for Hageland.
What are some other storylines we should be looking out for as the Spring Classics kick off?
Let’s answer a question with more questions!
- After a winless Classics last year with SD Worx-Protime, how will Vollering go in her first spring with FDJ-Suez?
- With Kopecky starting her season later than usual, and aiming for GC success at the Tour de France, how will her Classics campaign be affected?
- Lidl-Trek has had a big shake-up in the offseason. How will the team’s new recruits go in the Classics – particularly Emma Norsgaard and Anna Henderson? And how will the team approach the races without Longo Borghini as their talis(wo)man, particularly when Elisa Balsamo isn’t racing (she won't be at OHN)?
- Will Puck Pieterse continue on her way to becoming the Classics star she seems destined to be?
- Will 2025 be the year Marta Cavalli (now with Picnic PostNL) finally gets back to her best after a horror few years?
What storylines will you be keen to keep an eye on at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and indeed at the Classics more generally?
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