Moolman Pasio, queen of Romandie, international icon

South African Ashleigh Moolman Pasio achieved historic success by winning the first edition of the women’s Tour de Romandie, the last event of the 2022 UCI Women's WorldTour.

Ashleigh Moolman Pasio’s signifiant feat happened last weekend. There’s one statistic that puts it in a clear context: no one had beaten Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team) in a stage race in 2022. The South African took advantage of the last event of the UCI Women's WorldTour to turn the tables, winning the Tour de Romandie. She gave her SD Worx team their 20th success of the season, beating the UCI World Champion by 30 seconds. Van Vleuten won the overall standings of the UCI Women's WorldTour and the Italian Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) accompanied them on the podium of the Swiss event.

Named among the outsiders at the start of the race, Moolman Pasio built her victory on stage 2, between Sion and Thyon 2000, which offered the riders two cat-1 climbs. The South African star eventually distanced Van Vleuten 2.5km from the finish, setting up a solo victory at an altitude of 2,090m.

A first for Moolman Pasio and Africa

As curious as it may seem, this stage success and the gain in the general classification are Moolman Pasio's first two victories in the UCI Women's WorldTour. At 36, Moolman Pasio has 44 career victories, including multiple national and continental championships. Among her main triumphs, she conquered the Emakumeen Euskal Bira in 2017 as well as a stage of the Giro d'Italia Donne last year, at times when these two races were not part of the UCI Women's WorldTour.

This first for Moolman Pasio is also historic: she is the first African to win in the series which has brought together the biggest road events since 2016. This feat takes on even more weight in an accelerated phase of development of cycling on the continent, a few months after the first victory of an African rider on a classic of the UCI WorldTour, thanks to Biniam Girmay (ERI) in Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields, and a year after the designation of Kigali (Rwanda) to host of the 2025 UCI Road World Championships.

Bouncing back after the Tour

The coronation of Ashleigh Moolman Pasio marks the end of her win drought that has lasted almost a year and three months. She had not raised her arms since her stage victory on Monte Matajur at the Giro in July 2021. Since then, she’s had some remarkable performances: 3rd in Strade Bianche, 4th in La Flèche Wallonne Féminine and Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes, then 5th in the Women's Tour. But her season had not taken her to the heights she dreamed of.

For Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, as for most of the riders in the peloton, the first Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift was the main objective of the 2022 season. “When I started my professional career, the Tour de France was a distant dream... I never believed that this would happen,” she said a few days before the start from Paris, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Exhausted, she finally abandoned on the morning of the last stage, which led to the Super Planche des Belles Filles.

Before her withdrawal, Moolman Pasio was in 12th place in the general classification just one minute and nine seconds from the Top 10. She had taken 3rd place in the Reims-Épernay stage behind Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (DEN) and Marianne Vos (NED).

New plans for 2023

Was this relative failure in the women's Tour de France a trigger? Ashleigh Moolman Pasio had assured 2022 would be her last season as a professional rider on the road. At the end of her contract with Team SD Worx, the South African changed her mind and signed up for a season with UCI Women’s Continental Team AG Insurance - NXTG Team, headed by Patrick Lefévère.

This victory in the Tour de Romandie Féminin only served to support that change: “This victory proves that it was the right decision to continue next year. After all, I'm finishing the season at a very high level.”

At almost 37 years old, Moolman Pasio takes on one last challenge. She will assume both the role of leader and road captain of the Dutch team, featuring the Swede Julia Borgström (21 years old), wearer of the white jersey on the Women's Tour 2022, and the New Zealander Ally Wollaston (also 21), a surprise winner of the Grand Prix du Morbihan Féminin - Trophée Harmonie Mutuelle, last May.

Unlike SD Worx, the future team of Ashleigh Moolman Pasio is not part of the UCI Women's WorldTour, but it has solid arguments to gain invitations to the main races on the calendar with the South African star and her talented teammates. She will aim to shine in the big one-day races and on the roads of the next Tour de France Femmes, the route of which will be unveiled on October 27, at the same time as that of the men’s Tour de France.