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Annemiek van Vleuten, reigning Girls’s Tour de France champion
The Netherlands’ van Vleuten received the primary version of the Women’s Tour de France on the age of 39 final 12 months regardless of having a abdomen bug through the first half of the race that almost pressured her to withdraw. She hopes to retain her title and preserve the rainbow jersey worn by the reigning Tour de France champion earlier than retiring on the finish of this 12 months. In 2022, she received the world’s three main biking races: Spain’s Vuelta, the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, and rounded off the 12 months by profitable the ladies’s world championship street race in Australia.
Often called “The Cannibal”, van Vleuten expects robust competitors: “I’m going to do every part I can to participate within the battle for the yellow jersey (awarded to the general winner of the Tour de France) […] All of the levels are a bit tough earlier than this closing weekend. There are six different levels the place it’s important to watch out.”
All through this race, she will probably be maintaining a tally of fellow Dutch bike owner Demi Vollering, who she stated has “demonstrated this 12 months that she is the very best and the massive favorite for this Tour de France”. Van Vleuten added: “She has overwhelmed me earlier than. Will probably be a problem to beat her, however I’m prepared.”
Demi Vollering, primary challenger and a dispute to settle
This previous spring, Vollering, backed by a robust staff sponsored by SD Worx, celebrated a number of wins in one-day biking races all through Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium, together with the Strade Bianche cycle race in Tuscany.
Runner-up to van Vleuten final 12 months, she is set to beat her this 12 months, particularly following an incident at this 12 months’s Vuelta that prompted fairly a stir: van Vleuten and her staff intentionally sped up whereas Vollering was taking a rest room break through the penultimate stage of the race. Little doubt Vollering needs to make van Vleuten pay for this lack of sportsmanship.
Elisa Longo Borghini, the Italian from Trek
The Trek staff, typically recognised as the very best skilled girls’s biking staff, didn’t carry out effectively eventually 12 months’s Girls’s Tour de France. This 12 months, it’s pinning its hopes on its chief, Elisa Longo Borghini.
The Italian street and time trial champion is returning to the Girls’s Tour de France following a horrible crash throughout stage 5 of this month’s Giro d’Italia, which pressured her to drag out of the race. Nonetheless, this fighter shouldn’t be letting this maintain her again and is hoping to do significantly better than her sixth place final 12 months.
Juliette Labous, nonetheless the very best Frenchwoman?
Fourth final 12 months, Juliette Labous might be nonetheless France’s finest likelihood at a podium end and even general victory on Sunday, July 30 in Pau, a metropolis in southwestern France. The DSM-sponsored rider is in good type, as she completed second on this month’s Giro d’Italia behind van Vleuten, whose agressive techniques didn’t have an effect on her efficiency.
On paper, the route fits her completely. There are a selection of tough levels the place she may choose up seconds right here and there: a “queen” stage with a end on the Tourmalet mountain cross within the French Pyrenees that fits her climbing abilities; a time trial because the grand finale, an added bonus for this former French champion and one other space the place she may doubtlessly outdo her rivals.
Marta Cavalli, revenge on the road on the Girls’s Tour de France
Within the first version of the Girls’s Tour de France, Marta Cavalli was seen because the French biking staff FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope’s trump card, as she had managed to briefly unseat van Vleuten through the Giro d’Italia a number of weeks earlier. Nonetheless, every part modified throughout stage two close to Provins, a medieval city situated southeast of Paris. Cavalli was hit arduous by a rider as she was getting up after a fall and needed to withdraw from the race attributable to a concussion.
Learn extraMoving up a gear: The return of the Women’s Tour de France
Mentally and bodily affected, she had fairly a battle. Her staff had religion in her and gave her the time she wanted to get again on her ft, which ended up paying off. Her success in Hautacam through the Tour des Pyrénées race in June was an actual wake-up name for Cavalli. She went on to place in a string of fantastic performances, coming inside touching distance of the nationwide titles in each the time trial and street race.
She returns to the Girls’s Tour de France with a vengeance, as does the entire FDJ staff. As soon as once more this 12 months, she shares the lead with Danish bike owner Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and may depend on younger French bike owner Évita Muzic as a wild card.
Different names to be careful for:
No listing can be full with out Dutch bike owner Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma), as she is the most important winner in girls’s biking and the course is much less mountainous this 12 months. Poland’s Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon//SRAM-Racing), who got here in third final 12 months, will probably be trying to just do as effectively this 12 months. She even skipped the Giro d’Italia at first of this month to assist her possibilities within the Tour de France. Lastly, Veronica Ewers (EF Training), who got here in fourth place within the Giro d’Italia, would be the finest American bike owner competing on this race.
Learn extraWomen’s Tour de France: Director relishes chance for girls to ‘identify with champions’
This text has been tailored from the original in French.
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