The ONLY* race where the top two female cyclists in the world go head-to-head
Women's 2023 World Champs Preview
Following on from the Men’s World Champs, the Ladies event poses to be just as much of an important encounter if not for slightly different reasons.
While the Men’s race was a race to find out the rider with the most versatility and the most sustained engine, a battle to crown the ultimate monument racer if you will, the women’s race is the ultimate monument but also the ONLY1 opportunity we have this year to find out which of SD Worx’s riders is the best in Classics and One-Day Races.
As a reminder for those that rarely follow Women’s Cycling, it is dominated by just 1 team and that team is SD Worx. They won 31 wins this year in the Women’s World Tour (out of a possible 57 they took part in) and 8 one-day races out of 11 they took part in. Considering this is a team of only 16 riders, and so can’t send their top riders to every race, that is incredible. No Women’s or Men’s team in recent memory has ever achieved a similar level of dominance.
The problem of having one ‘super-team’ in Women’s Cycling means that we never have the opportunity to compare riders inside SD Worx directly against each other, but the World Champs is different as they are on National teams so on Sunday we will see a true battle between Demi Vollering (Netherlands) and Lotte Kopecky (Belgium), 1st and 2nd place respectively in the Tour de France Femmes a couple of weeks ago.
The maths explaining why this will be an SD Worx battle?
For fans of other riders or teams, this may start to sound like a biased preview but the evidence suggests this race will likely be as a fight between Vollering and Kopecky.
If either of Vollering or Kopecky started a One-Day Race this year, one of them or one of their teammates won ALL but 2 times and SD Worx has won EVERY One-Day race that they both started. This is nuts! Our 2 exceptions to this complete domination was Lotte Kopecky failing in Paris-Roubaix, where the peloton failed to catch the early break and Kopecky would have likely otherwise won, and Demi Vollering in the Brabantse Pijl getting outsprinted by Silvia Persico, taking place between her 2nd place in the Tour of Flanders (behind Kopecky) and before her Ardennes triple (an amazing feat for hilly-suited riders thats has only been achieved 4 times ever in history across both Men’s and Women’s riders).
Our favourites are also justified as if we also use the same model that we used to predict favourites for the Men’s race (link below) we get the following ranking of favourites:
Demi Vollering (Netherlands)
Lotte Kopecky (Belgium)
Shirin van Anarooij (Netherlands)
Lorena Wiebes (Netherlands)
Liane Lippert (Germany)
Annemiek van Vleuten (Netherlands)
Elisa Balsamo (Italy)
Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Poland)
Pfeiffer Georgi (Great Britain)
Silvia Persico (Italy)
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Denmark)
Juliette Labous (France)
Marlen Reusser (Switzerland)
Chiara Consonni (Italy)
Grace Brown (Australia)
What will the race be like?
This race has a very similar course profile to the Amstel Gold Race Ladies with the Worlds being only 1.7km shorter and 12m less total elevation than Amstel and the altitude gain is made up of lots of short, this parcours could have been lifted straight from the Dutch Limburg. Even the final climb up Montrose street in Glasgow is at a similar distance to the finish as the Cauberg in the Amstel Gold Race. The results of Amstel this year was (with the ranking of each rider given by the model in brackets):
Demi Vollering (1) 4:06:54
Lotte Kopecky (2) +0:08
Shirin van Anarooij (3) ‘‘
Katarzyna Niewiadoma (8) ‘‘
Soraya Paladin (22) ‘‘
Grace Brown (15) ‘‘
Pfeiffer Georgi (9) ‘‘
Ashleigh Moolman (20) ‘‘
Silvia Persico (10) ‘‘
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (11) ‘‘
And we should expect a similar result in the Worlds. That being said the steep climbs, sharp corners, and forecast rain will likely result in larger gaps than shown above and will benefit the Cyclocross riders: Shirin van Anarooij and Silvia Persico.
Race Tactics and Teams to Watch
As with all Women’s World Champs, the race will be dominated by the Dutch team (4 of Top 6 favourites are Dutch not including Marianne Vos (all-time legend), Riejanne Markus (4th in Liege this year), Loes Adegeest (won Cadel Evan’s RR) and Mischa Bredewold (top SD Worx domestique)). Because of Lotte Kopecky, they have to ride for Vollering and so they will make the race hard for her. Kopecky is the fastest sprinter that I believe could make it the line as the race is a bit too tough for Lorena Wiebes. Also they should have Cyclocrosser and third favourite Shirin van Anarooij with Vollering, so in a reduced group they can force other riders to chase if one of them attacks.
Belgium will also want to make the race hard. In a tactical finale, Kopecky will likely be isolated in the final 2 laps unless Justine Ghekiere is on a good day, so Kopecky may as well be in a very reduced group at the front of the race, rather than in a larger group where her rivals like the Dutch have more teammates to attack her, and force her into riding on the front and/or chasing down lots of moves.
If we get the rain as expected then a rider that may also compete with Kopecky and Vollering is Silvia Persico from Italy who I fancy because of her Cyclocross ability and she has also proven she can beat Vollering in a One-Day Race this season. If Elisa Longo Borghini was not out ill, I would think of her as a top favourite and she is definitely who Italy should ride for.
None of the second-tier favourites (see favourite ranking above) have strong enough teams to make the race suit them which is why I’m so confident of this Vollering/Kopecky match-up. The only uncertainty left is whether they will be joined by a selection from van Anarooij, Persico, Niewiadoma (good on steep gradients and 3rd at the Tour de France Femmes), Lippert (who could be argued looked the strongest at the 2022 World Champs) and whoever is the surprise on the day.
And what a match up it’ll be between Vollering and Kopecky. We saw the drama possible between them at the 2023 Strade Bianche Donne, a race that will be remembered more than the Men’s version. They rode away from the peloton together, catching the last rider of the breakaway, as they came into the finishing town of Siena, then aggresively fighting amongst themselves for victory. Politics concerning who was meant to be riding for who caused chaos in the final kilometer and was the biggest talking point in Women’s Cycling for weeks, before they were able to successfully work together as a team to win the Tour of Flanders.
Now they are not on the same team, and it’s their job to race against one another as the top two favourites, this bitter competitiveness at Strade Bianche from both of them will likely return and could shape the race on Sunday.
Both riders will be desperate to win the Worlds as it’s one of the only gaps left in both of their palmares. They are going head-to-head, the gloves will be off, and I absolutely cannot wait!
2023 Strade Bianche Donne the only exception.