Great Women Riders

Zulfiya Zabirova Rider History Rider Type: All-round Classics Specialist Zulfiya Zabirova earned her first international result in 1994 when she took 3rd place in the Individual...

Like quite a few Dutch riders (Demi Vollering, Femke Markus etc.), Ellen van Dijk began as a speed skater before transitioning to a cyclist...

Trixi Worrack announced herself as a rider with great potential by winning the 1998 World Juniors Time Trial. She beat Olga Zabelinskaya and Geneviève...

Diana Žiliūtė was like a prototype version of Marianne Vos. A sprinter with some climbing ability who could win flat races and harder hilly races too...

Judith Arndt started her career mainly as a track cyclist and time triallist. She took a bronze medal in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta in the Individual...

Mirjam Melchers turned pro in 1998 for the Rabobank Women's Team, aged 23. In her first pro season she won the Ronde van Dordrecht and a stage of the...

Chantal Blaak turned pro in 2008 for the AA-Drink Cycling Team. She was already a 2-time winner of the Dutch Junior National TT Championships by that time.

Fabiana Luperini started racing at the highest level in 1993, aged 19. She started well with a 4th place in the Trofeo Alfred Binda and a respectable...

Emma Johansson turned pro in 2005 for the Spanish Bizkaia–Panda Software–Durango team. There weren't too many international results yet.

Annemiek van Vleuten's career has 3 main periods in it, just like Marta Bastianelli. That middle period though is very very different for Van Vleuten.

Nicole Cooke turned professional in 2002 (aged 19) and won the Commonwealth Games in her first season. She'd already won the National Championships twice (once winning the Seniors as a Youth) and had started a run where she won it every year between 2001 and 2009.

Marta Bastianelli has really had a career of three distinct periods so far. There's the instant young talent taking the biggest results stage early on. Then the middle part after a 2-year ban where she struggled for results. We're now in the 3rd part, since 2016, where Bastianelli is one of the strongest riders in the peloton for one-day races.