The Setmana Ciclista Valenciana has blossomed into an early-season staple for GC riders over the last few years. Initially a low-level 2.2 race for many years, it was getting a strong enough start list that saw it get plenty of attention. The likes ofย Anna van der Breggenย andย Cecilie Uttrup Ludwigย won the overall classification during those years. As live coverage through the hills became a little bit easier to function, it has subsequently raised through the ranks to a 2.1 and as of 2023, a 2.Pro race. That puts it just below the top Women’s WorldTour level but allows it to cater for big names and local teams and that shows no sense of abating in 2025. Demi Vollering, the returning Anna van der Breggen, Marlen Reusser, Liane Lippert, Kasia Niewiadoma, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, Marta Cavalli and more will be racing.
The only repeat winner of the race has been Annemiek van Vleuten in 2021 and 2022. Given the chance to set some early season pace on climbs and summit finishes, Van Vleuten was able to ride away from her rivals and be comfortably the fastest rider uphill each time. It was a similar enough story for Anna van der Breggen the year before only she went very early on the key stage. The live coverage dropped in and out with the time gaps reportedly tough to corroborate until a final fixed camera on the run to the finish line confirmed the Dutch star had stomped the opposition.
2023โs race sawย a surprise GC win for Justine Ghekiereย who had attacked on the final stage for her teammateย Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio. Her break with Elise Uijen was able to hold on to the line with the Dutch rider taking the stage win and Ghekiere an unplanned 1 second win over her team leader. It had been a relatively strange edition with the climbing stage not quite tough enough so the GC battle was neutralised on that day. Withย no big gaps and just 11 seconds + bonuses separating Moolman-Pasio, Spratt and Van Vleuten from everyone else.ย 2024 was won by Marlen Reusser after she attacked and won solo on Stage 2 before hanging on the next day to enough of a time gap. She finished 8 seconds ahead of Kasia Niewiadoma who was part of the group that let Reusser go on her attack.
This yearโs route sees similarities to previous editions with the Oronet visited on the 3rd stage a particularly common feature of the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana. There are no truly flat stages but a couple of late tasty small climbs give opportunities if someone wants to go on the attack. With no summit finishes this year, the onus will be on riders to attack late climbs like the Alta de Barx on Stage 1 and L’Oronet in Stage 3. We’ve seen very long-range attacks from the likes of Anna van der Breggen before now as well and it will take something similar for any major time gaps to establish themselves. For the front group, it could come down to bonus seconds.
Previous Winners
2024
Marlen Reusser
2023
Justine Ghekiere
2022
Annemiek van Vleuten
Setmana Ciclista Valenciana 2025 Race Profiles
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Live TV Coverage
Thursday 13th February – Sunday 16th February 2025
Live on SportPublic TV Youtube channel
Stage 1: 14:45-16:30
Stage 2: 14:00-16:15
Stage 3: 11:30-13:30
Stage 4: 11:50-14:00
All times in GMT
Twitter:ย #SetmanaCiclista
Startlist:ย FirstCycling
Setmana Ciclista Valenciana 2025 Contenders
Last year’s winner Marlen Reusser has got off to a good start in 2025 with victory at Trofeo Palma Femina, finishing with a strong powerful sprint that Mavi Garcia couldn’t respond to. A few of the stages here are similar with late climbs leading into a stretch of kilometres to try and maintain any gaps before the line. Liane Lippert will want to get her season off to a better start than last year, where a stress fracture prevented her from racing until the tail-end of April. We’re kinda missing a proper little kick to finish the stages for her to really shine but with Reusser around, the pair will feel like they have a shout if a group of GC favourites is contesting wins.
We get our first chance to see how Tour de France Femmes GC winner Kasia Niewiadoma and Danish rider Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig will work together. On paper, they are very very similar riders but in the last couple of years, maybe Kasia has pushed on more than her teammate in GC battles. Similar to Lippert, both would love a little kicker at the finish but will have to make do with some well-timed attacks to earn those precious GC seconds. Many moons ago, Uttrup Ludwig was a GC winner here back in 2017 and has never finished lower than 10th in GC in 5 editions.
FDJ-Suez looks up for this with their team selection. Especially after the UAE Tour Women didn’t go to plan for Juliette Labous this week. Demi Vollering makes her debut in her new team colours and gets some valuable support from Evita Muzic and Elise Chabbey. The latter in particular should be a decent threat as there will be plenty of QoM points on offer with the climbs suiting her style more than the really tough, high ones. Demi Vollering will want to lay down a marker early on this year and hopefully, that means some attacks. We’ve seen in previous years that the climbs can sometimes neutralise the favourites but we’ll see.
Liv AlUla Jayco’s UAE Tour Women racing also didn’t go to plan as Letizia Paternoster had to leave the race after Stage 1 when a big crash saw the Italian do a full flip and then get ridden into by another rider whilst on the floor. If she has recovered in time, there will be an opportunity of two here against a smaller sprint field. Mavi Garcia was also in the wars, picking up scrapes and wounds in the UAE too. She’s been a regular at the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana over the years with a best of 2nd place in 2021. Her lack of sprint means a breakaway is essential for her to match that result and so we might see her near the bottom of the top-10 instead. Monica Trinca Colonel stepped up to take on the GC role at the UAE Tour Women and finished 4th on both the Jebel Hafeet stage and the GC. She’s got the potential to beat Garcia again here. Caroline Andersson was 13th in last season’s race with a consistent showing across the stages and Silke Smulders is definitely one to watch after a strong ride in Australia. 2nd in the Tour Down Under and 5th in the Cadel Road Race is a sign of a rider in some early season form.
Elisa Balsamo has been a bit of a stage-winning queen of the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana. The Italian has 5 wins from 4 starts, missing out in 2017 but then after a single win in 2022, has won twice in each of the last 2 editions. She’s another rider who will have wished for more in the UAE at the weekend with a surprisingly best finish of only 12th on what amounted to 3 sprint opportunities. Crashes and bad positioning hampered here but maybe having Clara Copponi here will help out. Gaia Realini is in theory the GC threat there for Lidl-Trek but there isn’t a huge climb or summit finish here for her. That should limit how successful she can be in the GC but it’s still a good run out for future challenges.
Eleonora Gasparrini was strong in GC here back in 2023, finishing 5th on all 4 stages to finish…7th overall. That feels possible to repeat last year with no major summit finish and plenty of climbing races that are likely to finish in some kinda of sprint to the line. The Italian has had a solid start to the year with 8th and 10th in the Challenge Mallorca races. It’s tempting to think of Erica Magnaldi as a GC threat but the same reason that works for Gasparrini here also means it will be tough for Magnaldi. She will have no issue on the climbing but when it comes to sprinting for the line for the placings, that’s where she’ll struggle. UAE Development Team rider Paula Blasi is riding up with the main team here and will be worth keeping an eye on. The Spanish rider was 3rd on a climbing stage of the Tour de l’Avenir last season (and 4th overall), plus she’s shown that she has a reasonable kick in the finishes of races too.
Pauliena Rooijakkers had a huge 2024 season, showing that she was a major GC contender by riding to the Tour de France Femmes podium. She’s got a best of 11th in GC at the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana, secured back in 2019. The parcours works against her this year though with no summit finish or kicker, it’s hard to see her dropping rivals and then outsprinting whoever is left. The bottom end of the top-10 would be a solid result here. Teammate Yara Kastelijn probably has more of the all-rounder qualities needed for this race. She was 8th in 2023 and should come into this year’s race with some race form in the legs after just enough cyclocross this off-season to keep things ticking over.
The return of Anna van der Breggen will be plenty hyped in this year’s race. She won the 2020 editions, just disappearing and going clear halfway through Stage 2 with Demi Vollering and Clara Koppenburg the only riders to finish within 1’50” of the Dutch star. What level she’s at will be particularly interesting to see with another long-time returnee in Ferrand-Prรฉvot struggling on the Jebel Hafeet climb recently. Teammate Mischa Bredewold might also be one to watch as she can do what Marlen Reusser did for the team last season by being in the front group and doing a well-timed attack to win stages and maybe more.
Team Picnic PostNL have a few options here but the focus will be on Marta Cavalli. She’s changed teams this off-season after a 2024 season to forget after she was rarely able to race. Everyone would love to see her back to her best but we’ll have to see how quickly that happens. Otherwise, Elise Uijen would love to repeat her stage win from 2023’s Setmana Ciclista Valenciana but is similar to Cavalli in that she’s on the comeback trail after back issues derailed her 2024 season. Francesca Barale and Eleonora Ciabocco could both prove to be useful on the rolling parcours and will have the advantage of not being major race favourites. Similar to the way Uijen won her stage and Justine Ghekiere the GC in 2023, both could be nice attacking options that surprise the final standings. Juliana Londono is also a nice wildcard to have for the team. The new Colombian national champion obviously has some form and could fit into the same attacking option as Baracle/Ciabocco.
Human Powered Health will be looking for Thalita de Jong to deliver a strong GC charge, especially on this parcours without major climbing and plenty of chances for the likes of De Jong to be in reduced front groups sprinting for wins. She was 9th last year when there was a major climb and has a total of 5 top-10 stage finishes in 2 editions spread over 7 years (2017 & 2024). She already has a win this season at the Trofeo Binissalem-Andratx. On the flatter stages, the team will be backing Daria Pikulik who was 3rd at Vuelta CV Feminas last weekend. The Pole wasn’t able to get on terms with an early sprint from Linda Zanetti so on paper it’s hard to see her beating Balsamo if they both have a clean sprint. She has a chance and will be one of the major sprint favourites. We also get to see Mona Mitterwallner on the road after the Austrian switched from mountain biking this off-season. The climbs here maybe aren’t tough enough but it’s an early indicator of where her level might be. Yurani Blanco might also be worth keeping an eye on but her previous results at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana have been pretty awful.
Katrine Aalerud had a fairly quiet but good enough UAE Tour Women, finishing 8th in GC there despite no top-10 stage finishes. The Uno-X Mobility rider also took 4th at Trofeo Binissalem-Andratx and 6th at Trofeo Palma Femina this season to earn a bunch of points for a team focused on remaining in the WWT at the end of the season. She’s finished on the GC podium here back in 2021 and might get more freedom than some of the bigger names here. Linda Zanetti has also gone well taking the aforementioned win at Vuelta CV Feminas after finishing 4th at Trofeo Marratxi-Felantix. She’s got a chance for another win here but it will be tougher against Balsamo and Gasparrini. Anouska Koster is also a nice attacking option who was 3rd on a stage in 2022 and almost snuck into the top-10 on GC in 2023 as well.
Usoa Ostolaza moved up a level last season, taking wins and becoming Spanish national champion. She will be using this to see where she’s at going into a season where she will be considered the out-and-out leader for the first time. Like others, she may be able to sneak under the net with others looking at the bigger names. Teammate Catalina Soto Campos has been sprinting well in 2025, with the Chilean taking a pair of top-10s recently. 8th at the Trofeo Binissalem-Andratx was backed up with 6th at the Vuelta CV Feminas. It will be between her and Arianna Fidanza for the sprints as she’s also finished 9th and 10th so far in 2025.
Setmana Ciclista Valenciana 2025 Outsiders
Sandra Alonso has a stage win here from back in 2021 from when she was better known as a sprinter. Now she’s more likely to be going on attacks and breaks and on this parcours, that might be enough to sneak a high GC placing as well. She didn’t get a result of note from the Australian part of the 2025 season but what we saw in 2024 puts her in line for a result. Teammate Fariba Hashimi took a stage win at the Tour de l’Ardeche last season after several results that put her on the radar of bigger teams. She ended up on Ceratizit-WNT where she was consistently around 30th but without a spectacular result. Expect to see her on the attack again.
Lore de Schepper of AG Insurance-Soudal has the potential to do what Justine Ghekiere did a few years ago. The 19-year-old climber is on the radar this year for a big result after a strong first year in the Elites last year with a win at GP Fรฉminin de Chambรฉry and the Tour de l’Avenir prologue. If the startlist was thinner, she would be a favourite and it’s likely only a matter of time until she moves up after some consistent results.
Lotto Ladies pulled off a bit of a coup in getting Romina Hinojosa for the 2025 season. The Mexican had a strong 2024 season, with plenty of good European results for the American Boneshaker Project p/b Roxo team. A strong finish to the Tour de l’Avenir saw her take 6th on the final 2 stages there and then 7th in GC on the Giro Toscana that followed. We’ll get to see how she fares against some serious Women’s WorldTour teams here as she continues to develop.
There aren’t a tonne of sprinters here, so Massi Baix Ter’s sprinter Karin Sรถderqvist could get herself into the top-10 of a stage or two. She was on Lifeplus-Wahoo last season before that team’s unfortunate early demise and has picked up a few top-10s in recent seasons. Still only 21 years old the Swedish rider might be able to put herself on the map again here.
Top 3 Prediction
โฆฟ Demi Vollering
โฆฟ Marlen Reusser
โฆฟ Thalita de Jong
