Refresh
Entrance group now two minutes forward with just below 150km to go.
The entrance group’s lead has grown to over a minute. It seems like this might be our break of the day.
Ahtosalo (Uno X Mobility and Castrique (Cofidis) are nonetheless in between and Ragusa (Human Powered Well being) has dropped again to them.
The riders within the entrance group are:
Julie Van De Velde (AG Insurance coverage-Soudal Staff)
Katia Ragusa (Human Powered Well being)
Giorgia Vettorello (Roland)
Lieke Nooijen (Staff Visma | Lease a Bike)
Amandine Fouquenet (Arkea-B&B Inns)
Laura Molenaar (VolkerWessels Ladies’s Professional Biking Staff)
And bridging throughout are:
Anniina Ahtosalo (Uno-X Mobility)
Alana Castrique (Cofidis)
A transfer has gone clear with round 30 seconds on the peloton.
One contender who did not make the beginning right now was Visma | Lease a Bike’s multi-discipline star Fem van Empel.
She wasn’t “feeling one hundred percent,” in line with the workforce.
The riders are about ten kilometres in. No assaults but.
Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) has had begin to her street season to date, she’s one of many outsiders for right now. This is what she mentioned earlier than the beginning:
“We anticipate it to be very windy right now so most likely a number of echelons. So the purpose is simply to be racing within the entrance lots with the workforce and check out ot be within the first echelon.
On the query of how do you beat the large groups:
“I believe SD Worx and likewise Trek are the strongest groups right here right now. It will likely be troublesome to beat them, however for certain not unattainable…We’ll simply need to see how the race goes. It will likely be arduous from the start so we’ve to hope that the group might be lowered a bit.”
The ladies simply left @StadIeper for his or her journey by way of Flanders Fields! 🌹#GW24 #GWwomen pic.twitter.com/9xMbQtUULMMarch 24, 2024
Ought to the race come all the way down to a dash right now, SD Worx-Protime are anticipated to depend on Lorena Wiebes. Earlier than the beginning, she was requested concerning the windy situations.
“Usually, I prefer it,” she mentioned. “It is good while you’re within the first echelon…It will likely be a tough race, with a number of side-winds. I am trying ahead to being again on this race… It is essential to be as a workforce collectively and to have as many team-mates as attainable within the entrance group. I believe we’ve a extremely robust line-up.”
The official begin has been given.
The climate is certain to be an element right now, with winds blowing at round 35km/h in the mean time.
That is nothing out of the unusual for this race!
There are a number of riders trying to upstage Kopecky, a few them have managed to do exactly that already.
First it was Marianne Vos (Visma | Lease a Bike), winner at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. She received this race again in 2021 and might be trying to repeat.
Elisa Balsamo is one other who seems again to her finest. The Lidl-Trek rider and 2022 Gent-Wevelgem champion has lately received the Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Basic Brugge-De Panne.
CyclingNews have analysed all of the contenders for the ladies’s and males’s races right here:
The riders are simply rolling out within the impartial zone.
World Champion Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) comes into the race because the heavy favorite. This is Cyclingnews’ evaluation of the expectations on the Belgian star over the following couple of weeks.
Weight of the world – Lotte Kopecky the centrepiece of the cobbled Classics
Final yr’s race actually typified the dominance of SD Worx over the spring races – and far of the remainder of the season – with Swiss TT star Marlen Reusser taking the win by two minutes and forty-two seconds over a chasing pack policed by her team-mates.
Will it’s the same story right now?
Gent-Wevelgem is the primary of a triplet of massive cobbled Classics in girls’s biking; with the Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix going down over the following two weekends.
It is often the simplest of the three, however with the winds howling in Flanders how will the racing pan out right now?
Hi there and welcome to Cyclingnews’ reside protection of Gent-Wevelgem Ladies.
