Lotte Kopecky’s supreme force sees her excel on all sorts of terrain and especially on the roads of the UCI Women’s WorldTour. This year, the Belgian star rules the final 2024 UCI Women’s WorldTour Individual Ranking, after coming second in 2023 behind her Dutch teammate Demi Vollering.
The two riders from Team SD Worx-Protime swap their positions for the 2024 season – which lasted from January to October –, with the Belgian amassing a whopping 4,596 points. Vollering followed with 4,175.29 points, ahead of Italy’s Elisa Longo Borghini (3,327.14 points) at the helm of Lidl-Trek.
With their two emblematic stars and much more talent in reserve, Team SD Worx-Protime (NED) rule the Team Ranking for the fourth year in a row, with 14,384.03 points. Lidl-Trek (USA) follow (9,840.98 points), with Canyon//Sram Racing (GER) rounding out the podium (7,744 pts) thanks in no small part to Kasia Niewiadoma’s performances, not least her victory in the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
Lidl-Trek’s Shirin van Anrooij dominates the UCI Women’s WorldTour Youth Ranking for the third consecutive year, with 44 points. Her Dutch rival Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) follows with 36 points and Australia’s Neve Bradbury (Canyon//Sram Racing) takes third position with 32 points.
Team SD Worx-Protime on all fronts
Crowned 2023 UCI World Champion in the road race in Glasgow, Scotland (Great Britain), Kopecky rapidly put her rainbow jersey in the spotlight in 2024. As early as February, in the wake of her successes in the UEC European Track Championships, the Belgian star displayed her versatile abilities in taming the Jebel Hafeet climb on her way to winning the UAE Tour Women.
She marked the spring with victories in the Strade Bianche and Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift. She was still a mighty force in May, coming third in the Ford RideLondon Classique before winning the Tour of Britain Women in June. Into the European summer, she battled over Italian summits to finish second in the Giro d’Italia Women.
And in between battles on the road and the track at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and UCI World Championships, she added more stage race successes, in the Tour de Romandie Féminin and the Simac Ladies Tour, to seal the deal in the UCI Women’s WorldTour Individual Ranking.
Vollering also impressed with her consistency throughout the season but victory escaped her during the Classics. She replied with a supremely dominant string of Spanish stage race successes - victories in the Vuelta España Femenina by Carrefour.es, Itzulia Women and the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas - followed by another victory, in the Tour de Suisse Women.
A Swiss resident, Vollering headed to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift full of ambition, especially as the race started from her homeland. The defending champion won the individual time trial (ITT) in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and conquered the Alpe d’Huez, but Niewiadoma resisted her in the overall standings, claiming victory by 4 seconds.
With her pure speed and her Classics skills, Team SD Worx-Protime’s Lorena Wiebes also amassed 13 UCI Women’s WorldTour victories this year (Classics such as the Miron Ronde van Drenthe and Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields, as well as the Ford RideLondon Classique and many more stages).
Mischa Bredewold (Classic Lorient Agglomération - Trophée Ceratizit), Blanka Vas (1 stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift), Niamh Fisher (1 stage of the Giro d’Italia Women) and Barbara Guarischi (1 stage of the Simac Ladies Tour) completed the team’s set of victories.
A season of stars and newcomers
Before Kopecky’s Emirati successes, the Australian start of the UCI Women’s WorldTour season blew in a fresh breeze with victories for Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal Team) in the Santos Tour Down Under - also marked by Ally Wollaston’s first victory at this level on the road - before Rosita Reijnhout (Visma | Lease a Bike) won the Deakin University Elite Women’s Road Race at only 19 years old.
At the other end of the spectrum, Reijnhout’s fellow Dutchwoman, teammate and inspiration Marianne Vos added a few more lines to her extraordinary record, most notably winning the Omloop Nieuwsblad, the Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition and two stages of La Vuelta España Femenina by Carrefour.es.
The spring also marked the return to their very best for Italian teammates Elisa Balsamo and Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek). The former won both the Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio and the Classic Brugge-De Panne in March, before the latter took the Ronde van Vlaanderen – Tour des Flandres early April and went on to conquer the Giro d’Italia Women in July.
Longo Borghini also came second to Australia’s Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez) in Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes and third in La Flèche Wallonne Féminine, where she saw Niewiadoma end her drought of victories on the road. “I have a lot of respect for her,” the Italian said at the time, highlighting her rival’s resilience when things didn’t go her way… Little did she know Niewiadoma was heading to a historic victory in the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift!
An exhilarating season, with 27 UCI Women’s WorldTour events around the world, eventually came to an end in China, with Marta Lach (Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling Team) claiming the Tour of Chongming Island before her teammate Sandra Alonso won the Tour of Guangxi. The season has come full circle… And a new one is already on the horizon!