One of many oldest girls’s occasions within the calendar, Trofeo Alfredo Binda – Commune di Cittiglio, can also be one of many uncommon one-day occasions of the spring the place SD Worx-Protime would not have its identify scrawled everywhere in the leaderboard via latest years. For 3 years working, the Ladies’s WorldTour race, which first occurred 50 years in the past, has been the dominion of Lidl-Trek.
Final 12 months it was Shirin van Anrooij who took the honours for the workforce with a solo break, whereas Elisa Balsamo claimed the second spot from the small group dash behind. That ending flip of pace was the important thing to victory for the workforce in 2022, when Balsamo triumphed in a lowered bunch dash, and in 2021 it was Elisa Longo Borghini with a solo win.
The query now’s can the workforce declare its first Ladies’s WorldTour win of the 12 months to make it 4 in a row in Cittiglio in 2024?
There are once more a number of choices to cowl the same old race-winning situations of both a solo win or a small group dash. The winners of the final two years – Van Anrooij and Balsamo – line up with a power-packed squad behind them, however there are additionally loads of others who’ve proven that they’ve the flexibility to disrupt Lidl-Trek’s plight.
SD Worx-Protime, for one, will likely be have Elena Cecchini and Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, in keeping with the preliminary begin checklist, whereas Alpecin Deceuninck’s Puck Pieterse will come in with the jersey of the chief of the youth class within the Ladies’s WorldTour on her again. UAE Workforce ADQ are anticipated to return in with the sturdy duo of Sofia Bertizzolo and Silvia Persico whereas Canyon-SRAM’s Soraya Paladin will likely be seeing if she will proceed, and even higher on, her run of prime 5 finishes.
The following level of reckoning within the Ladies’s WorldTour is quickly approaching, so it’s time for Cyclingnews to run the ruler over the favourites, in addition to a number of the outsiders, on the 140km race on Sunday March 17.
The unpredictability of Trofeo Alfredo Binda – with its two early climbs after setting off from Maccagno after which the four-time repeated mixture of the Casalzuigno and Orino – means to have the most effective probability at profitable a workforce must preserve its bases lined. Lidl-Trek definitely has finished that. The workforce has put collectively a squad that features the final two winners of the race Shirin van Anrooij, who received solo in 2023, and Elisa Balsamo, who claimed the 2022 win in a lowered bunch dash.
It was simply Van Anrooij’s second race of the street season when she celebrated her first girls’s WorldTour victory on the end line in Cittiglio final 12 months. In 2024, she will likely be focusing on the race with a barely longer lead in, having began her street season at Setmana Valenciana, the place she got here tenth general and claimed the youth classification. Van Anrooij has proven the indicators of getting the shape in place to mount a formidable defence of her title, with a fifth at Strade Bianche and an attacking fourth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Balsamo too, is clearly in high-quality fettle after beginning her season with a pair of stage wins at Setmana Valenciana and taking second at Ronde van Drenthe behind Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-ProTime). Given the power and apparent type of the Lidl-Trek pair are carrying into the race, plus the truth that in addition they have a bunch different highly effective playing cards – Brodie Chapman, two-time winner Lizzie Deignan, Gaia Realini and Amanda Spratt – a fourth title in a row seems to be like a definite risk.
It’s usually a sport of decide which SD Worx-Protime former winner might be the workforce’s foremost card for a race when narrowing down the highest contenders for a Ladies’s WorldTour race, such has been the power of the workforce in latest seasons. Nonetheless Trofeo Alfredo Binda occurs to be a uncommon race the place the squad would not have a listing of latest winners on the roster. The truth is the Dutch workforce hasn’t celebrated victory in Cittiglio since 2016 when Lizzie Deignan, who now races for Lidl-Trek, claimed victory for a second 12 months working whereas clad in Boels-Dolmans colors.
SD Worx-Protime’s prime performer on the race over the previous six years has been Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, with second on the 2018 version after which a fourth in 2022. Nonetheless, as she returns from a 12 months out of the peloton it would not be stunning if it maybe takes her a bit longer to construct to her prime racing stage this season, however there may be one other rider from the workforce who was additionally proper behind her at that 2022 version.
For Elena Cecchini, Trofeo Alfredo Binda is a race the place she has commonly discovered herself excessive on the outcomes tally. Her 5 top-10 finishes embrace a trio of fifth locations, the newest in 2022, which was additionally the final time she competed on the occasion. The 31-year-old has clearly come into the season with a robust winter behind her, delivering a few prime 10 stage outcomes at Setmana Valenciana when she began racing.
If she will get an opportunity at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Cecchini might simply be the rider to take the workforce again to the rostrum on the long-running Italian race.
When Balsamo received Trofeo Alfredo Binda from a lowered bunch dash in 2022, it was Sofia Bertizzolo who led the cost behind, taking the runner-up place. The race has been a staple of her season because the 26-year-old Italian turned skilled in 2016. The mixture of ups and downs with a quick end is precisely the place Bertizzolo excels, and is the kind of terrain that has led to her victory in latest seasons.
This 12 months, too, she delivered a robust early begin to verify she was nicely into her stride by spring, having began the 12 months in Australia and twice made it to the rostrum on the Santos Tour Down Underneath in addition to profitable a criterium, the Geelong Basic. The longer construct might stand Bertizzolo in good stead this 12 months, nonetheless, she definitely is not going to be the one card for the workforce to play.
The final two occasions Silvia Persico has raced Trofeo Alfredo Binda, she has made it in with the entrance group, ending sixth in 2023 and eighth in 2022, which bodes nicely for what she could possibly do together with her refreshed give attention to stage and at some point wins on the street in 2024.
The 26-year-old rider has set her cyclocross and GC ambitions apart to as a substitute set her sights on the Olympic Video games, and the Spring Classics are amongst her early objectives. Trofeo Alfredo Binda might nicely be marker to see how her work with new coach Luca Zenti is progressing, with indicators already that the construct is nicely on the best way after a 14th at Strade Bianche and eighth at Trofeo Oro earlier this month.
Puck Pieterse has already proven us simply what a strong drive she will be within the mountain biking and cyclocross, with a 3rd within the elite race at each the newest Mountain Bike and Cyclo-cross World Championships. Her transient foray onto the street in 2023 additionally made it crystal clear that her skills lengthen to a 3rd biking self-discipline, with the rider taking fifth at Strade Bianche final 12 months.
Not surprisingly after that first foray, Pieterse determined to tackle extra street races this 12 months and already the 21-year-old has stepped onto a Ladies’s WorldTour podium. Pieterse began with prime 10s at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Omloop van het Hageland this season, after which was thirteenth at Strade Bianche earlier than serving to mild up Ronde van Drenthe. First, she delivered an acceleration which peeled off a robust group of eight riders after which, when that was caught, nonetheless managed to ship third within the uphill dash.
It is a highly effective indicator that the rider is hitting her stride on the street as nicely, so be careful come Sunday when Pieterse will line up carrying the blue jersey of the chief of the youth classification of the Ladies’s WorldTour.
Vittoria Guazzini fought her means into third place final 12 months in Cittiglio, standing on the rostrum alongside the 2 Lidl-Trek riders. It was a robust season begin for the Italian then, who early in 2023 had additionally hit the rostrum at Le Samyn des Dames after which taken seventh at Ronde van Drenthe. This 12 months the 23-year-old has taken it up even one other notch with a win at Le Samyn from a small group dash after which sixth on the Belgian Ladies’s WorldTour race.
That ought to go away the rider, who claimed the primary U23 girls’s time trial World Championship in 2022, brimming with confidence as she takes on her first dwelling race of the season with the sensation of victory contemporary in her reminiscence. The preliminary begin checklist additionally signifies that she might have some helpful firepower by her aspect, with Grace Brown more likely to be on the roster. It might additionally doubtlessly mark the return to competitors of Marta Cavalli after a bone contusion within the pelvis suffered in a coaching fall that delayed her season begin.
Pfeiffer Georgi completed 2023 off with a win and has already delivered a sign that she is heading into 2024 on a agency footing. Whereas sickness might have intervened at Strade Bianche, it was a visit to the rostrum at Omloop van het Hageland and a prime 10 eventually Sunday’s Ronde van Drenthe the place she was a strong help rider for her teammate Charlotte Kool.
Georgi would not have a lot to indicate by the best way of outcomes on the Italian Ladies’s WorldTour race which she has solely taken half in twice – first when she was 18 in 2019, delivering a DNF, after which once more in 2021, when she got here thirty ninth – however this 12 months she will likely be returning as one of many key rider for dsm-firmenich PostNL, alongside Juliette Labous. The French rider, together with her prowess on the ascents, might come to the fore within the situation that the race is shredded into ones and twos by the climbs however ought to or not it’s a lowered group dash Georgi is the clearer choice.
Plus, the rider from Nice Britain has truly proven she has acquired what it takes to say victory on the street to Cittiglio as a junior, having in 2018 began her season with a win within the U19 model of the race.
Mavi Garcia has already discovered her means onto the rostrum a number of occasions this season, her first with the newly-combined Liv AlUla Jayco. The Spanish champion stepped as much as third in her first race of the 12 months at Trofeo Palma Femina and on the UAE Tour on stage 3 to Jebel Hafeet, which then additionally helped her to 3rd general on the stage race. It was then twelfth at Strade Bianche because the season, the place the rider is hoping for a bounce again from 2023, continues to indicate promise.
Garcia has already made her means into the highest ten twice at Trofeo Alfredo Binda and together with her Jebel Hafeet outcome a transparent signal that she is climbing nicely, search for the 40 12 months previous to attempt to make her transfer on the ascents, or a minimum of observe the important thing assaults there.
Soraya Paladin has raced each single version of Trofeo Alfredo Binda since 2014, and impressively the 30-year-old hasn’t completed outdoors the highest 10 since 2018. She has been within the prime 5 the final three years, hitting the rostrum in 2022. With a file like that, it’s exhausting to wager in opposition to the Italian.
“I’m wanting ahead to Sunday as I all the time just like the course,” mentioned Paladin in a workforce launch. “I wasn’t feeling 100% nicely at Strade Bianche, however I’ve now improved and count on a significantly better race.”
Elise Chabbey can also be one other sturdy choice for the workforce having simply delivered eighth at Strade Bianche. It might nicely be the case that the Swiss rider seems to be for a break alternative whereas the Italian supplies the dash choice as that was definitely the plan in 2022 when Paladin got here third.
