With its first 2 editions in the books, the UAE Tour Women returns in 2025 with a broadly similar parcours. 3 stages look like nailed-on sprints and the GC will be decided on the slopes of Jebel Hafeet. We’re looking at something like 9km at 7% average on the climb, so there’s little hope for sprinters with bonus seconds to contest the GC as the gaps will become minutes rather than seconds here. That was the case last season Lotte Kopecky set the tone for her 2024 season with a dominant win. More established pure climbers like Neve Bradbury, Mavi Garcia and Gaia Realini were left in the Belgian’s wake as the time gap and bonus seconds were enough to decide the GC. The World Champ is set to miss this year’s race.
Photo Credit: Sprint Cycling AgencyThe other thing to note is that whilst the stages appear flat apart from Jebel Hafeet, the desert conditions are ideal for crosswinds and echelons. Those split the race up plenty in 2023 where Trek put in a lot of effort to keep the diminutive climber Realini out of trouble. 2024 saw similar issues and some late crashes outside the 3km to go line hampering riders who might’ve had a shot in the GC. Riders can find themselves out of contention in those situations if they’re not careful with the main peloton pushing on, with one group in 2023 losing almost 17 minutes in the end. We also saw the first successful breakaway winner last year in Amber Kraak who just about held off a chasing peloton to take victory in Abu Dhabi to finish off that year’s UAE Tour Women.
Previous Winners
2024
Lotte Kopecky
2023
Elisa Longo Borghini
2022
Not held
UAE Tour Women 2025 Race Profiles
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Live TV Coverage
Thursday 6th February – Sunday 9th February 2025
Live on Discovery+/Eurosport/Max
Stage 1: 10:50-12:30
Stage 2: 11:00-12:30
Stage 3: 11:00-12:30
Stage 4: 11:00-12:30
All times in GMT
Twitter: #UAETourWomen
Startlist: FirstCycling
UAE Tour Women 2025 Contenders
UAE Team ADQ are looking to win the GC at their home race this year. The 2023 winner Elisa Longo Borghini can certainly deliver that, with the Italian the strongest looking option on paper in this year’s race. She will get some strong support from the likes of Silvia Persico and Karlijn Swinkels too, with the latter already impressing in Australia this season. When it comes to the sprints, Sofie van Rooijen will be one to watch after an impressive 2024 season. She may not be able to beat Lorena Wiebes, Elisa Balsamo or Charlotte Kool but she’s in the hunt looking to close the gap to that top trio.
After winning the GC here last season with Lotte Kopecky, SD Worx will be all in for sprints this season. Lorena Wiebes has the full sprint train to back her up as she could very well take 3 stage wins here and come ever closer to 100 career victories. After missing out a couple of times here in 2023 to rivals, she took wins last year, only to miss out on the final stage as a break from Amber Kraak won. If SD Worx commits to the chasing, there’s no reason they can’t take multiple wins but the GC should be out of reach.
The formidable Team Picnic PostNL sprint train will get its first run out of the 2025 season. Charlotte Kool took a pair of stage wins here in 2023 against Lorena Wiebes, setting her stall for the rest of that season that the former lead-out rider was a match for her former leader. The tables were turned in 2024 though with Wiebes comfortably dominant again. Rachele Barbieri should be in full lead-out mode again after getting the chance to lead in Australia, picking up a 3rd and 5th place along the way. All of the other parts of the train seem to be back now with Megan Jastrab returning and Pfeiffer Georgi too. The British national champion fractured her neck in the infamous crash on Stage 5 of last year’s Tour de France Femmes and missed out on the season’s final months. She will be an important rider for Kool to achieve success and also for the chances of Nienke Vinke on Jebel Hafeet. The young Dutch rider impressed this time last year with a strong Tour Down Under and is the team’s best shout for the GC at this year’s UAE Tour Women.
The final member of the top trio of sprinters in the women’s peloton is Elisa Balsamo who will be wanting to beat Lorena Wiebes again after a couple of tough seasons. Balsamo has managed to find injury in a couple of incidents, like a broken arm at Burgos and the other injuries via her team car in RideLondon the year before. If she can get a clear run, we might see her back on Wiebes-beating level. Lidl-Trek’s GC hopes will be with Riejanne Markus who potentially doesn’t have the beating of a few others here but the gradual nature of Jebel Hafeet suits a diesel climber and she can get a very solid result.
Chiara Consonni has moved across to Canyon SRAM this off-season and will have a chance to get off to a fast start. She’s got a habit of following Lorena Wiebes where possible and that often secures her a good result but doesn’t see her beating Wiebes ever. The challenge for Consonni this year will be to get that particular monkey off her back and there will be 3 quick opportunities here.
Mavi Garcia traditionally does well in the UAE Tour Women but is guilty of pacing rivals on Jebel Hafeet, only to get smoked in the final couple of kilometres. The Spanish rider sets a pace that helps drop most riders but the strongest ones are able to sit tight, knowing that Mavi doesn’t necessarily have any punch to be able to respond or make strong enough attacks. Anything outside the top-5 in GC will feel like a disappointment but it’s tough to see her taking the win as well. She will be supported by Monica Trinca Colonel who had a breakout year in 2024 for BePink. She’s a rider who could make even more developments now that she’s on a Women’s WorldTour team and it starts here. Liv AlUla Jayco’s sprint hopes will be with Letizia Paternoster who can certainly deliver a top-5 result but should struggle to breakup the main trio here.
FDJ-Suez will bring Juliette Labous as a serious GC hope and on paper she should be well up there challenging Longo Borghini. Her move across to FDJ-Suez is a serious homecoming for the best French GC rider to the French team. At times this year, Labous will have to switch to an unfamiliar supporting role for Demi Vollering but this represents a clear chance for Labous to go ahead and try to get a win.
AG Insurance-Soudal can call on a strong pair of Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio and Urska Zigart for their GC hopes on Jebel Hafeet. Moolman-Pasio has been the leader of the team the last couple of years but this sort of parcours really suits Zigart too. A hockey stick stage is ideal for the Slovenian who can put herself in the hunt. She’s talked about having more opportunities on her new team compared to before and this would be an early tester.
The comeback of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot begins at the UAE Tour Women! The French rider has committed full-time to the road for the first time in around 5-6 years and has already talked up wanting to seriously challenge for the Tour de France Femmes. We’ll get an idea of how likely that will be depending on her climb here. She will get support from Marion Bunel who will also fancy her own chances too. Her issue may be any cross winds on the other stages however as a diminutive pure climber. If she stays out of trouble, Visma Lease a Bike could get a pair of riders in the top 10. For the sprints, they can call on Martina Fidanza who should be a consistent top-10 finisher herself this week without truly troubling the big names.
Cofidis will want to back riders like Martina Alzini and Amalie Dideriksen for the sprints here. It’ll be interesting to see how they pair up and who will be leading out who with the roles not necessarily clearly defined at this point of the season. Julie Bego will be the team’s option on the climb but potentially might only just sneak into the bottom of the top-10 against the types of riders going for the GC. In her second season in the pro peloton, we’ll get to see if she’s kicked on this off-season. Victoire Berteau could do what Amber Kraak did last season and is a strong enough rider to help keep other riders out of trouble in this year’s UAE Tour Women.
EF Education-Oatly have an interesting line-up with Cedrine Kerbaol their obvious GC hope. We won’t get to see any descending magic from the French rider because of the parcours but with the team points hunting and clearly strong in January/February each year, we might see Kerbaol challenging for the GC if she has something like her Tour de France Femmes form. Hopefully we’ll get to see some throwback sprints from both of Nina Kessler and Alison Jackson. Once upon a time they both were decent challengers and this looks like a rare opportunity for the road captains to get their own result.
Maggie Coles-Lyster picked up a good podium in Australia to kick-off the season on her new team and could get the nod as a result in the UAE Tour Women. Human Powered Health need to keep an eye on UCI points and they might sprint with Coles-Lyster and Kathrin Schweinberger in order to snaffle up two places high up to secure the points. Coles-Lyster has done lead-out duties before but it’ll be interesting to see who does get the leadership nod this week.
Movistar don’t have an obvious major GC challenger but we could see Mareille Meijering in the hunt. The Dutch rider certainly climbs alright but the question is what she can do against this type of field. It’s a similar story for Olivia Baril who prefers a shorter sharper climb than what we’ll get here in Jebel Hafeet. It’s a chance to see how young Spanish sprinter Lucia Ruiz Perez has developed this off-season after a few promising results last season.
Another team chasing UCI points is Uno-X and we should see a GC battle from Katrine Aalerud and maybe Solbjork Minke Anderson too. Aalerud, like a few others here, should suit the parcours of the hardest stage with a tough finish without too much softening up beforehand. Minke Anderson has been going strong so far this year in Australia and could get a good result herself whilst supporting Aalerud. Sprints should be covered by Maria Giulia Confalonieri who will challenge for the top-10s.
UAE Tour Women 2025 Outsiders
Petra Stiasny has shown flashes of her talent the last few years, with the Swiss rider the purest of climbers. That means we’ve seen her lose the GC at races like this before it ever really began as when splits form, Stiasny seems to be the wrong side of them. But those flashes give hype, especially when we have a stage ending with a serious climb,. Now back on a smaller WWT team in Roland, that may suit with less pressure on her.
Elisa Valtulini of BePink is a rider to watch this season as she can be the nice rider off the Italian team’s talent conveyor belt which has delivered the likes of Silvia Zanardi and Monica Trinca Colonel to the Women’s WorldTour. This one may be tough with the WWT opposition to beat and we may have to wait a bit longer for one of the smaller races but she’s firmly on the watch list.
Laboral Kutxa will probably have Laura Tomasi sprinting for them at the UAE Tour Women. She had a solid result or two in Australia already this season but in such a sprinter heavy race might get swamped out. But if anyone is looking for a left-field sprinter who can pick up some points for any fantasy games out there then Tomasi is a decent shout.
Top 3 Prediction
⦿ Elisa Longo Borghini
⦿ Juliette Labous
⦿ Mavi Garcia
