Live: 2025 Brabantse Pijl Women

Mathew Mitchell

Published on April 18, 2025
in Women's Cycling

As the spring classics begin their subtle shift from cobbles to climbs, the 2025 edition of Brabantse Pijl Women offers a crucial link in the transition. Wedged between the tail-end of Flanders and the start of the Ardennes, today’s race brings a different kind of attrition—one that doesn’t rely on long climbs or bone-rattling pavé, but instead wears riders down through repetition, positioning, and sharp accelerations.

The route, once again based around Overijse, is built on a series of circuits that include the leg-sapping Moskesstraat, Holstheide and Hagaard climbs. These repeated efforts rarely allow for recovery and tend to chip away at the peloton lap by lap, setting up a selective finale where only the most durable puncheurs remain. The Moskesstraat, in particular, may have lost its cobbles ahead of the 2021 Worlds, but its punishing gradient and narrow profile still ensure it plays a defining role.

This race has quietly established itself as a proving ground—not just for the Ardennes contenders honing their form, but for riders seeking a career-defining result on terrain that rewards both strength and race craft. In 2023, Silvia Persico held off Demi Vollering and Liane Lippert to win from a reduced group. In 2024, Elisa Longo Borghini attacked solo on the Holstheide and made it stick, with Vollering again having to settle for second place.

With Vollering not on the start list this time, there’s a greater sense of unpredictability heading into today’s race. Will a solo move go clear again? Or will the sprints from reduced groups—so common here—decide the outcome once more?

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Startlist