A quick preview look at St Feuillien Grand Prix de Wallonie 2024

Mathew Mitchell

Published on September 17, 2024
in Women's Cycling

The St Feuillien Grand Prix de Wallonie is a relatively new race, with only 2 previous editions in the books. It’s changed name for the 2024 season, previously known as the Grisette Grand Prix de Wallonie, the beer theme very much continues into this year with St Feuillien a well-known brewery inside and outside of Belgium. The course finishes with the notable ascent up the hill to the citadel in Namur, the location of many cyclocross races and championships over the years. The curving road does a loop through the fortifications before cresting the top of the hill overlooking the Sambre and Meuse rivers below. That’s not quite where the finish line is though with a small ride and turn to an uphill drag to the finish line just around the back of the citadel. The 2024 course is unchanged from 2023’s race.

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The first edition was notable for its finish with Justine Ghekiere, now the Queen of the Mountains at the Tour de France Femmes, going clear on the climb and looking set to win the race only to take a wrong turn on the final corner. That allowed her teammate Julie de Wilde to gain enough time to take the victory, with Ghekiere not quite able to restore her original position. Ghekiere still finished 2nd, just ahead of another teammate Yara Kastlijn as the Plantur-Pura team took a 1-2-3 finish. At that point, Ghekiere hadn’t taken a UCI win yet, in what was the end of her 2nd season at the top of the sport of cycling. It marked her potential as one to watch though and she won Setmana Ciclista Valenciana at the start of the following season.

Last year’s race was won by Marta Lach, with a bigger group coming to the finish line together than the year before. The race had been elevated from 1.2 level to 1.1 level and had a stronger startlist as a result. Still on the same finish line after the climb up to the citadel, Lach was easily faster than a chasing Silvia Persico and Victoire Berteau at the line, with Persico’s teammate Sofia Bertizzolo in 4th ahead of Nadia Quagliotto of Laboral Kutxa. Justine Ghekiere, after just missing out the year before finished in 8th spot.