It’s been a strong couple of seasons for VolkerWessels Women’s Cycling, but the sport’s vanishing lower tier seems determined not to let anyone enjoy success for too long. Several of the races they won in 2024 have disappeared entirely from the 2025 UCI calendar. Not moved. Not rescheduled. Just… gone.
Of those erased from memory, four were won by Sofie van Rooijen, who departed for UAE Team ADQ this year. That hasn’t lifted the curse. Instead, it may have spread. A win by van Rooijen in 2024 appears, with the benefit of hindsight, to have been an early indicator that a race was on borrowed time.
The race cancellation casualties for 2025 now include:
- Drentse Acht van Westerveld – won by Sofie Van Rooijen
- Omloop van Borsele – won by Sofie Van Rooijen
- Cyclis Classic – won by Anne Knijnenburg
- Thüringen Ladies Tour (Stage 1) – won by Margot Vanpachtenbeke
- Konvert Koerse – won by Sofie Van Rooijen
- Grote Prijs Beerens – won by Sofie Van Rooijen
It’s difficult not to find some black humour in the situation. A Continental team (now ProTeam, as that tier has been created) succeeds at exactly the level the sport claims to value, only for those very races to quietly disappear. One can almost picture the VolkerWessels riders scrolling through the 2025 calendar like contestants returning to defend a quiz show title, only to find the programme’s been cancelled. The victories still count, but the chance to build on them – to repeat, defend, or even just race in similar company – has been erased by a shrinking lower tier.
No ladder, only lifts
The deeper issue, of course, is not about one team or a handful of events. It’s about structure – or the lack of one. Women’s cycling is increasingly turning out like a box set on fast-forward. Watch a few junior races, skip the Continental chapters, and jump to the Women’s WorldTour (WWT) finale. No spoilers needed: the transition can work, but it doesn’t always go well. Instead of being shaped like a pyramid, it’s looking increasingly top-heavy as teams and races take steps to be the highest possible levels without any balance.
For riders, there are always success stories. Riders like Cat Ferguson, Imogen Wolff, Célia Gery, Isabella Holmgren, Ava Holmgren, Fleur Moors, and Viktória Chladonová have all quickly found their way into the top tier after huge success as juniors. Paula Ostiz, only 18, is already due to join Movistar this August as a stagiaire, with a full contract to follow in 2026 (similar to Zoe Backstedt’s introduction to the WWT). She’s going to spend less time as a Continental rider than some riders do at their local bike shop.
Some are proving to be an instant hit in the pro ranks, but there have been challenges of the likes of Eglantine Rayer and, increasingly, Zoe Backstedt. Rayer spoke last year of having considered stepping way from cycling, after injury niggles and because she didn’t hit the ground running in the pro ranks. She’s been rejuvenated by a win in last year’s Tour de l’Avenir and a move to FDJ-Suez, but without that chance to win by racing at U23 level, she may have been lost to the peloton. It’s certainly not a new issue either, with Lucy van der Haar open about her struggles going pro as a double-junior world champion as well. She eventually retired at the age of 26 in 2020 but had the high of a GC + stage win at the Dubai Women’s Tour that year before bowing out.
So, for every rider able to skip steps, others need those steps to exist to reach their full potential. The assumption that every junior with strong results is immediately ready for the Women’s WorldTour is at best optimistic, and at worst, negligent. There is now little space between “talent” and “expectation,” with riders thrown into races against Kopecky and Vollering within 12 months of their graduation from the junior ranks. Some make it. Others don’t – and they often drift into early retirement.
Rare exceptions exist. Julie Bego and Titia Ryo have chosen a different option to the WWT conveyor belt, finding leadership roles at Cofidis and Arkea-B&B Hotels, respectively. Francesca Pellegrini and Federica Venturelli, while technically outside the WWT on UAE Team ADQ’s development squad, are following a clearer and more structured pathway, gaining experience and responsibility in .1 and .2 races before being thrown into the cauldron of the Women’s WorldTour. It’s a route we’ve seen Lara Gillespie and Paula Blasi make successfully in the last 2 seasons as well. But now we’re seeing more of the smaller races disappearing, the chance to learn how to lead, to get things wrong, and to develop tactical sense in an environment where mistakes don’t always come with live coverage and UCI points pressure, might go with them.
Photo Credit: Arne Mill/T.RF SportmarketingA disappearing act
The cancellation of the Thüringen Ladies Tour, once a staple for up-and-coming riders, is particularly bleak. Initially shelved for 2025, its permanent demise has now been confirmed. For a race with history, prestige, and real value to the development calendar, the loss is not just symbolic – it is structural. Development teams, if they’re lucky enough to exist, are being left with a shrinking handful of events to attend that are still geared towards development.
At a time when the sport loudly celebrates increased visibility, equal prize money, and growing commercial appeal at the top level, it’s worth pausing to ask what happens when that top level becomes unreachable by normal means. Not every rider is an instant phenom. Not every junior is a prodigy. Some riders need some years of learning how to race at a higher level before they learn how to win as a pro. Right now, that space is evaporating. One of the best recent examples is Karolina Perekitko. who was 4th in the 2016 Junior World Championships in Qatar, finishing ahead of and near the likes of Balsamo (1st), Andersen (3rd), Paternoster (5th), Norsgaard (6th), Lippert (9th) and Karlijn Swinkels (11th). It took her around 8 years to finally start getting consistent results, with years on non-UCI level teams, before breaking through last season. She’s been following up on that with some more good results this season too, including 3rd at the Pays de la Loire Tour.
VolkerWessels, meanwhile, will feel slightly agrieved that they can’t repeat their 2024 successes. And the organisers of La Classic Morbihan, Midwest Cycling Classic and Région Pays de la Loire Tour-Féminin will now start to be worried about the status of their 2026 races, after wins this season by VolkerWessels riders Eline Jansen, Scarlett Souren and Anneke Dijkstra.
