Persico - Page 7

The Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta has had quite a developmental history. Originally a one-day race in Madrid that saw sprinters take victories, it has slowly grown into the 5-day race that it is this year. A team time trial was added to the sprint stage in 2018

The GP de Plouay is closing in on 25 years of racing, which makes it one of the longest running major races in the women's cycling calendar. The lumpy Brittany parcours has favoured climbers and puncheurs over the years, depending on the course layout. Delving into the list of former winners, you have the likes of GC winner Fabiana Luperini and Brit Nicole Cooke before the modern generation takes over

Eleonora Gasparrini has taken her first UCI win of the 2022 season at the MerXem Classic in Belgium. Held as a women's version of...

Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten won the Tour de France Femmes for the first time, in the first opportunity for her career. She took...

The Tour de France Femmes will bring women's cycling to a whole new set of cycling fans. The pull of the Tour de France...

Stage 7 of this year's Giro Donne saw the major summit finish and the highest point of the race at Passo Maniva. A tough...

Another relatively new race in Spain, the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas will have only its 3rd edition at UCI level in 2022. The race's history goes back a little further though, raced as a national level Spanish race with some big names on the previous winners list. Anna van der Breggen won the head to head against Annemiek van Vleuten last year. The climb up to Lagunas de Neila on the last stage was the major battleground.

The GP Eco-Struct has a history at the national level in Belgium but was raised to UCI level in 2020. After a pair of victories from Lorena Wiebes, the race moves up to 1.1 and starts to feel like an established, secure race now.

It was a long time coming but the first women's Paris Roubaix finally took place in 2021. We'd been teased that Paris Roubaix Femmes was taking place after the COVID lockdown in 2020 but further measures derailed the race. It was the same story in the spring of 2021 but finally, in October 2021, we saw a women's peloton on the cobbles.

The women's Amstel Gold Race returned last season. It was heavily altered, turned into a large circuit based around the Cauberg, the Geulhemmerberg and the Bemelerberg. The constant climbing was hoped to be attritional but ultimately we saw a reasonably large sprint after the Cauberg. Despite the attack of Niewiadoma, no-one would work with her and it proved fruitless. Vos took the sprint ahead of Demi Vollering and Annemiek van Vleuten.