No rest for the racing though. The women don't have a Hell of the North, unfortunately, and the grimpeuses will take time out until Amstel Gold for the most part. But the rouleuses are going to be out in force, because we have the Healthy Ageing Tour, a 5-day/6-stage battle through the northern Netherlands, beginning tomorrow. And it can be pretty hellish in its own right, despite being pan flat and all that - it's as pure Dutch racing as it gets, and that means street furniture (a lot of street furniture), serious fast pace, sprints and waaijers (a lot of waaijers). This, under its former guise of the Energiewacht Tour, was the race which Ina-Yoko Teutenberg once reminisced about driving a teammate of hers, who had been deriding it as easy due to being completely flat, to tears with the strong winds and fast pace. Last year, helped by a sizable TTT, Boels-Dolmans locked out the podium, with Amy Pieters winning the race ahead of Chantal Blaak and Christine Majerus.
This year, they're out for blood again, with Pieters, van der Breggen, Majerus, d'Hoore, van den Bos (who thankfully wasn't injured at de Ronde, she looked in a baaaad way sprawled out in the roundabout unmoving) and Schneider a team which is more than capable of locking out the podium again. Chief among their antagonists will be Trek, whose nominal leader will be Ellen van Dijk, a three time winner of this race, with Worrack, Lepistö and Paternoster among her team. WNT are also going all out at this race, with Kirsten Wild and Lisa Brennauer both in attendance, the latter of whom is also a former GC winner here, in 2015, perhaps influenced by the fact that neither are likely to be a factor in Ardennes week - though the team's best climber, Ane Santesteban, is here too. Lea Lin Teutenberg is here too, trying to follow in her mother's footsteps - Ina won in 2012. Canyon-SRAM and Virtu are both strong teams but missing key names - Canyon suffered a few injuries at de Ronde and don't consider the race to suit Niewiadoma for, well, obvious reasons (although she did win the Ronde van Gelderland in her Rabobank days!) so have gone with a team made primarily of their younger names, with Alice Barnes and Lisa Klein (who had a pretty good race at de Ronde, being prominent until quite late on and being in the first group in behind the Bertizzolo/van Dijk/Blaak/Niewiadoma quartet) the nominal leaders; Virtu rest Bertizzolo and Bastianelli and instead will rely on Anouska Koster's local knowledge and Barbara Guarischi's sprint skills. Parkhotel Valkenburg may be surprisingly strong too, with youth phenom Lorena Wiebes in the sprints and Ann-Sophie Duyck's skill against the clock. The rest of the startlist is a mixture of smaller Dutch teams including the occasional established name (the oft-controversial through no fault of her own Nathalie van Gogh, for example, with Biehler), Hitec Products, and national teams with a few established riders (Susanne Andersen and Stine Borgli for Norway, Nicole Steigenga, Maaike Boogaard, Karlijn Swinkels and Julia Soek for the Netherlands, Romy Kasper for Germany, Kaat Hannes and Saartje Vandenbroucke for Belgium).
This year, they're out for blood again, with Pieters, van der Breggen, Majerus, d'Hoore, van den Bos (who thankfully wasn't injured at de Ronde, she looked in a baaaad way sprawled out in the roundabout unmoving) and Schneider a team which is more than capable of locking out the podium again. Chief among their antagonists will be Trek, whose nominal leader will be Ellen van Dijk, a three time winner of this race, with Worrack, Lepistö and Paternoster among her team. WNT are also going all out at this race, with Kirsten Wild and Lisa Brennauer both in attendance, the latter of whom is also a former GC winner here, in 2015, perhaps influenced by the fact that neither are likely to be a factor in Ardennes week - though the team's best climber, Ane Santesteban, is here too. Lea Lin Teutenberg is here too, trying to follow in her mother's footsteps - Ina won in 2012. Canyon-SRAM and Virtu are both strong teams but missing key names - Canyon suffered a few injuries at de Ronde and don't consider the race to suit Niewiadoma for, well, obvious reasons (although she did win the Ronde van Gelderland in her Rabobank days!) so have gone with a team made primarily of their younger names, with Alice Barnes and Lisa Klein (who had a pretty good race at de Ronde, being prominent until quite late on and being in the first group in behind the Bertizzolo/van Dijk/Blaak/Niewiadoma quartet) the nominal leaders; Virtu rest Bertizzolo and Bastianelli and instead will rely on Anouska Koster's local knowledge and Barbara Guarischi's sprint skills. Parkhotel Valkenburg may be surprisingly strong too, with youth phenom Lorena Wiebes in the sprints and Ann-Sophie Duyck's skill against the clock. The rest of the startlist is a mixture of smaller Dutch teams including the occasional established name (the oft-controversial through no fault of her own Nathalie van Gogh, for example, with Biehler), Hitec Products, and national teams with a few established riders (Susanne Andersen and Stine Borgli for Norway, Nicole Steigenga, Maaike Boogaard, Karlijn Swinkels and Julia Soek for the Netherlands, Romy Kasper for Germany, Kaat Hannes and Saartje Vandenbroucke for Belgium).