There are many worthy challengers on the starting line of the seventh edition of the UCI Women's WorldTour: 14 teams have the licence to enter the 25 events in which the world’s best women cyclists will fight for glory. Their first battle is set on Saturday 5 March: the Strade Bianche will launch the Spring Classics campaign, before the teams take on other major one-day or stage races all the way until October.
After they dominated the team classification last year, Team SD Worx want to impose themselves once again. Now a member of the team’s sports direction, Anna van der Breggen will no longer open the road as she paves the way to success. But the Dutch team still has a handful of talented assets: Demi Vollering, Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, Ashleigh Moolman Pasio and the young stars Niamh Fisher-Black and Kata Blanka Vas are now joined by Lotte Kopecky and Marlen Reusser.
The offseason has been busy for SD Worx, marked by Amy Pieters’ serious accident at the end of December. Moolman Pasio announced that she was to retire at the end of the year, while Van den Broek-Blaak postponed her own retirement plans, which had been scheduled for this spring, back to 2024. The Dutchwoman wants to expand her stellar list of achievements and also become a mother.
Closely following Team SD Worx in 2021, Trek-Segafredo Women will once again be led by Elisa Longo Borghini, now accompanied by the young road race UCI World Champion Elisa Balsamo. Ellen van Dijk will wear the European Champion’s colours high, after her continental title in 2021, while Elizabeth Deignan, winner of the first Paris-Roubaix Women, is withdrawing from competitions while awaiting the birth of her second child.
On the podium of the UCI Women's WorldTour individual ranking in 2020 and 2021, Longo Borghini identified her objectives for 2022: "the Ardennes Classics, the first big goal of my season, then the Tour de France and the World Championships. On paper, the route is not suited to my characteristics, but I do know that I’d like to be there, in Australia, as a protagonist. That doesn’t mean being the leader but, as experienced in 2021 with Elisa Balsamo, might mean being at the service of someone who takes the win.”
Van Vleuten: “I like challenges”
Annemiek van Vleuten, the first rider to win the UCI Women's World Tour twice (2018 and 2021), is heading into her second year at the helm of the ever more ambitious Movistar Team Women. Accompanied again by Emma Norsgaard Jørgensen, Sheyla Gutierrez and Barbara Guarischi, the Dutchwoman also sees her Spanish squad strengthened with the Cuban Arlenis Sierra and the young Australian Sarah Gigante.
"The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will be my biggest goal of the year," Van Vleuten announced during her team’s presentation. “But I like challenges so I will ride the three Grand Tours. I am very proud of the evolution of the team at the moment and that motivates me a lot.” Insatiable, the Dutch star attacked the season by winning the Setmana Valenciana-Volta Comunitat Valenciana Fémines and the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad - Vrouwen Elite.
🎩👸👏 Chapeau, @AvVleuten, on your first ever public appearance in Spanish - gracias por tu esfuerzo, Miek 🤗#MovistarTeam2022 | @vamos pic.twitter.com/bJ0c63gywC
— Movistar Team (@Movistar_Team) January 20, 2022
To challenge these powerhouses, FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope has recruited Grace Brown, brilliant in 2021 and crowned Australian Champion at the start of 2022, alongside the star Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and youngsters such as Marta Cavalli and Évita Muzic. The German team Canyon//Sram Racing is still counting on Katarzyna Niewiadoma to shine with Alena Amialiusik, Lisa Klein and the recently recruited Sarah Roy.
The rising stars of Team DSM (Liane Lippert, Juliette Labous, Franziska Koch, Pfeiffer Georgi…) will once again be led by Lorena Wiebes and guided by Leah Kirchmann and Floortje Mackaij. Another Dutch formation, Liv Racing Xstar welcomes the experienced Thalita de Jong and young talents like Amber van der Hulst and Katia Ragusa to succeed Lotte Kopecky. The Australians of Team BikeExchange-Jayco receive support from the American Kristen Faulkner.
New influx of talent
These teams accustomed to the UCI Women's WorldTour will evolve in what’s set to be a challenging field, with the arrival of six new UCI Women’s WorldTeams: EF Education-Tibco-SVB, Human Powered Health, Roland Cogeas-Edelweiss Squad, Team Jumbo Visma, Uno-X Pro Cycling Team and UAE Team ADQ.
Led by legend Marianne Vos, Team Jumbo-Visma attracted the luxury recruitment of Coryn Labecki (known as Rivera until her marriage in autumn 2021). EF Education-Tibco-SVB follow the track opened by the historic Tibco team, around the American Lauren Stephens. The UAE Team ADQ (which succeeds Alé BTC Ljubljana) will notably be led by Marta Bastianelli.
Uno-X Pro Cycling Team will try to impose young talents including Susanne Andersen and Hannah Ludwig around the more experienced Hannah Barnes and Joscelin Lowden, holder of the UCI Hour Record timed by Tissot since September 2021.
Human Powered Health (led by the powerful Mieke Kröger) and Roland Cogeas Edelweiss Squad (with the experienced Olga Zabelinskaya) complete the field of 14 teams within the peloton of the UCI Women's WorldTour, a constantly growing series, which could accommodate a 15th squad in 2023.