European Championships Road Race 2024 History
The European Championships road race is a relatively new addition to the top level of cycling, with a history stretching back to only 2016. Previously, it was a race held for U23s and Juniors only before being elevated to the highest Continental competition in Europe. That means there’s no great history of riders going deep into the 1980s and beyond but the race has only been won by bona fide generational stars so far. Strangely, there has also never been a repeat winner so far.
Anna van der Breggen won the first edition with Marianne Vos joining her the following year. Marta Bastianelli outsprinting Vos the following year with this and Lorena Wiebes (who won in 2022 & was 2nd in 2023) is the closest that anyone has come to winning more than once. Bastianelli’s win is also the only time a Dutch rider hasn’t won the European Championships Road Race. Amy Pieters was able to get in a break with Elena Cecchini and Lisa Klein on a really windy day in Alkmaar in 2019, and then finish fastest. Annemiek van Vleuten got herself onto the winners’ roster with victory in 2010 before Ellen van Dijk’s solo attack in 2021 secured her a road title to go with her time trial titles. Lorena Wiebes won the bunch sprint in Munich in 2022 but was denied by her teammate Mischa Bredewold the following year on the VAMberg after Bredewold attacked and went clear with a lap or so to go.
The course this year is in Belgian Limburg between Heusden-Zolder, famous for its motorsport circuit and Hasselt. There is some rolling terrain in the middle of the race, but by the time the finish arrives the parcours will have calmed down. A sprint is expected, with the Dutch managing the race to increase their chances of victory once more.
Previous Winners
2023
Mischa Bredewold
2022
Lorena Wiebes
2021
Ellen van Dijk
European Championships Road Race 2024 Profile
TV Coverage
Saturday 14th September 2024
Live on Discovery+/Eurosport/Max
12:30-16:30
All times in BST
Twitter: #EuroRoad24
Startlist: FirstCycling
European Championships Road Race 2024 Contenders
Last year Lorena Wiebes was the big favourite but was beaten by her own teammate Mischa Bredewold who’d gone on a last-lap attack, seemingly against team orders. The atmosphere was a little frosty afterwards but it’s been 12 months and the trade teammates are back to having the trust restored. With that in mind, it’s really tough to see past Lorena Wiebes taking the victory here with not too much in the route to see her dropped. After 18 wins already in 2024, this looks set to see her back in the European jersey for the first time since winning in 2022. Mischa Bredewold has a chance of retaining her European title, especially after the way she retained the Classic Lorient Agglomération recently. She’s had a great season, including 2nd in the GC at Itzulia which shows she’s still developing plenty as a rider. The Dutch also have the likes of Tour de Romandie Féminin stage winner Riejanne Markus, Tour de l’Ardeche GC + stages winner Thalita de Jong, Ellen van Dijk, Karlijn Swinkels and Shirin van Anrooij to underscore the depth of their squad. It should be all-in for Wiebes though.
Italy has the strongest line-up to challenge the Dutch and will be backing Elisa Balsamo who just took her first win since March at the Tour de Romandie Féminin. She’s been slowly coming back from the crash at the Vuelta a Burgos, with a few results early on in the Tour de France Femmes and 4th at Classic Lorient Agglomération. The win was a nice way to restore some confidence coming into this final part of the season. There is plenty of sprinting support here too with Chiara Consonni. She took gold at the Olympics in the Madison but her sprinting since has been slightly off, finishing 2nd, 4th and 6th in flat Belgian one-day races in August despite being the major favourite. There are plenty of lead-out opportunities up for grabs in Vittoria Guazzini, Rachele Barbieri, Elena Cecchini, Maria Giulia Confalonieri and Barbara Guarischi.
In complete contrast, Blanka Vas won’t have a super team to support her with only one other rider here for Hungary. She’s in some great form at the moment, winning the 5th stage of the Tour de France Femmes this year coming off the back of a really strong performance at the Olympic Games. In Paris, she was in the winning move but simply didn’t have an answer to the late attack from Kristen Faulkner. She has a fast finish but will struggle to beat her trade teammate Wiebes but a podium is more than possible.
Polish hopes are on Daria Pikulik and Marta Lach. Pikulik has picked up a couple of wins this year in Belgian one-day races – the Argenta Classic and the Ronde de Mouscron and backed it up with a number of near misses, largely as a result of the dominance of Lorena Wiebes in sprints. If she can hook it up, the team is strong enough to drop her off in the right position to maybe sneak a medal. If anything happens to Pikulik then Marta Lach can step up, especially if the group does get whittled down so that it’s smaller. Her best results came in the double races of Festival Elsy Jacobs, and both races in Morbihan too. Since then 5th in GC at the Thüringen Ladies Tour and 10th in the Olympics have been very good on rolling terrain.
The Danish team will be led by Emma Norsgaard and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig but both will need a hard race to try and split up the bunch before the end. Once upon a time, we’d have seen Emma Norsgaard sprinting this out but she’s more inclined to attack and go long nowadays. It’s possible but it’s going to be difficult and require a lot of luck to pull it off. For Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, her form seems to just be trailing off at the moment. Since finishing 8th at the Giro, she’s not finished within the top 20 and dropped surprisingly early on the queen climb at the Tour de Romandie Féminin.
Lotta Henttala is here as a solo rider for Finland but we’ve seen that she can certainly sprint. She won the chaotic crash-filled finish at the Vuelta a Burgos for her first Women’s WorldTour win in 6 years back in May and she’s done a solid job since too. A pair of 4th places kicked off the opening part of the Tour de France Femmes and she came close with 2nd on the final stage of the Baloise Ladies Tour too. Her issue will be the climbs in the middle section of the race.
It’s going to be tough for France to beat the likes of Lorena Wiebes in a sprint but they have options who could still medal with a bit of luck. Clara Copponi will be the obvious one, although her road season has been interrupted by all sorts of track prep going into the Olympics this year. We’ve seen she still has a fast finish though at the Vuelta a Burgos and the Ford RideLondon Classique. Someone like Gladys Verhulst-Wild or Marie Le Net might become go-to options if anything happens to Copponi. The former was 2nd at French nationals and has a good chunk of mostly non-WWT top-10s this year, with Marie Le Net with a similar set of results and a credible 9th at Paris Roubaix Femmes. The wildcard in the French team is Victoire Berteau who has the power to turn the race on its head and do what Mischa Bredewold successfully pulled off last year. She’s also been surprisingly quick in a sprint recently too with 3rd at the Grote Prijs Beerens. Normally she can go quite well from a small group coming to the line.
German hopes are surely resting on Liane Lippert to deliver, but again it’ll be tough if she comes to the line with Wiebes there. She’s sprinting quite well on tough races at the moment with 3rd at the Classic Lorient Agglomération and the opening stage of the Tour de Romandie Féminin recently too. Lippert could go untalked about and still come out of this race with a medal. The alternatives for Germany would require some luck, with Franziska Koch maybe being the pick if she can recreate the ride which saw her become the German national champion. Often she works for others on her trade team and that hides what she could potentially do for the national team.
Noemi Rüegg is in some strong form at the moment, taking a pair of 4th places at the Tour de Romandie Féminin against some top drawer opposition, some of whom will also be here at the European Championships road race too. The Swiss rider has shown this year that she’s more than capable of getting over a series of repeated small climbs before unleashing a sprint. A medal is just about within reach but reaching the top-5 would be an impressive result still. She’s supported by Elise Chabbey who might’ve harboured ambitions herself her of being attacking and maybe getting lucky. A series of injuries and illnesses have slightly derailed her plans in this part of the season but she can still be a threat.
Norway’s biggest threat should come from Ingvild Gåskjenn. The Liv-AlUla-Jayco rider took her first top-10 result since May at the Tour de Romandie Féminin, finishing 8th on the final stage in Switzerland. If that’s a sign she’s coming back into her Ardennes and Vuelta form, then Gåskjenn could be in the top-10 here as well.
Christina Schweinberger and Kathrin Schweinberger will probably play it by ear to see who has the best chance on the day this weekend. The Austrian pair are closely matched but Kathrin is the slightly better pure sprinter, with results of 11th on the 2 opening stages of the Tour de France Femmes and 6th at La Picto-Charentaise somewhat recently too. Christina Schweinberger is the better race on a tough race with plenty of short sharp climbs, but since the classics season has only really impressed at the Thüringen Ladies Tour, taking 3rd in the TT and 7th on the stage before it. A top-10 for Austria is definitely possible.
Lotte Kopecky has decided to skip the European Championships road race (but is taking part in the time trial), which leaves opportunities for another rider to impress for Belgium. Marthe Truyen and Margot Vanpachtenbeke are the form riders at the moment for them. Truyen has 4 top-10s in a row since the Tour de France Femmes, all in Belgian one-day races and peaking with 2nd at Schaal Sels. Margot Vanpachtenbeke has been racing in France and Italy since the Olympics, winning the GC of the Giro Toscana Int. Femminile outright and a stage along the way. Truyen is arguably the fastest finisher of the pair but there isn’t much between it on a course like this.
European Championships Road Race 2024 Outsiders
The parcours hasn’t been kind to the chances of Spain but maybe Yurani Blanco Calbet can pull off a result after the season she’s been having. She’s secured a move into the Women’s WorldTour next season after a strong year which saw her take her maiden UCI win at the GP de Eibar earlier in the year and be a threat pretty much ever since. Most recently, she finished 7th at the Classic Lorient Agglomération. Sheyla Gutierrez might also be in with an outsider chance of the top-10 after taking her first win in 2 years at La Picto-Charentaise at the tail end of July. She had a supportive role in the Tour de France Femmes since but it was a reminder that Gutierrez still has a useful kick.
Caroline Andersson is beginning to impress more and more, even whilst racing and support Mavi Garcia most of the time. She was 19th in GC at the Tour de Romandie Féminin in that role and 14th at the Olympics after getting herself into the main group on the road in the late stages of proceedings. She’s probably missing that one big stand-out result still but she’s very much knocking on the door.
Eugenia Bujak spends most of her time supporting teammates on UAE Team ADQ, especially when there’s a sprint involved. However the Slovenian can finish well and regularly finishes in the teens at the European Championships road race. A truly top result is probably out of the question but she can sneak into the bottom part of the top-10 on the right day.
Top 3 Prediction
- Lorena Wiebes
- Elena Balsamo
- Blanka Vas
