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Lesser Known Road Racing for Women Thread

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It's also been announced that RCS will be working on a women's MSR and might also make some kind of deal with the Giro Donne and move it to earlier in the year.

Both things can be good and bad, because MSR will hurt Trofeo Binda, and the Giro rellocation might also affect races in May and/or June.

I don't know if the proposed Lombardia thing is still on the table for this year.
I feel like the good outweighs the bad, as personally Binda isn’t too important and the Womens Tour in June I feel can move, and Burgos can be prep for the Giro.
 
Binda being compromised would hurt one of the remaining standalone women's races, so it's a double-edged sword. Sure, its position is usurped by an important and historic race, but it's a race where all of the importance and history is men's importance and history, whereas Trofeo Binda is one of the last remaining high level races where all of its history is on the women's side of the sport.

I mean, the era of the underfunded privateer race organiser consisting solely of enthusiastic unpaid amateurs scraping together enough money to hold a race at the highest level being over is in many ways a good thing, and RCS actually getting more deeply involved in supporting and protecting the Giro Donne rather than just licencing out certain graphics and trademarks likewise... but at the same time I'll be sad to see those people who kept the sport alive as a labour of love chewed up and spat out once the big organisers, whose apathy and penchant for doing as little as they could get away with helped stunt the development of women's cycling for decades, decided the time was right to step in. The Primavera Rosa even if we do an Amstel Gold and pretend it's not being set up as a new race and give it the history of the original attempt at the race dates back to 1999 and lasted seven editions (and that in an Italy which, at the time, was probably the most supportive place of all in terms of women's cycling, capitalising on Luperini's successes). The Trofeo Binda has run since the 1970s and is the oldest ongoing race on the women's WT calendar, having missed only two years in the mid 90s and the pandemic-hit 2020 edition.

I mean, look at the ages of the various WWT one-dayers here:

Strade Bianche: 2015 (8 editions)
Ronde van Drenthe: 2007 (continuous save 2020 for 15 editions, but the smaller Drenthe women's races date back to 1998)
Trofeo Alfredo Binda: 1974 (46 editions)
Classic Brugge-de Panne: 2018 (5 editions)
Gent-Wevelgem: 2012 (11 editions)
Ronde van Vlaanderen: 2004 (19 editions)
Amstel Gold Race: 2001 (3 editions, then over a decade's layoff, then five editions from 2017-present skipping 2020)
Paris-Roubaix: 2021 (2 editions)
La Flèche Wallonne: 1998 (25 editions)
Liège-Bastogne-Liège: 2017 (6 editions)
La Course (now usurped by Le Tour de France Féminine): 2014-2021 (8 editions)
Clásica San Sebastián: 2019 (2 editions)
RideLondon Classique (now usurped by stage race version): 2013-2019 (7 editions)
GP de Pooley Plouay: 2002 (20 editions)
GP Vårgårda: 2006-2019 (14 editions)

As a result, I feel like the Trofeo deserves a bit of protection of its history and heritage as it possesses a history and tradition of its own, independent of having prestige inherent drawn from being an equivalent to a men's race, and that is becoming something almost unique on the women's calendar now.
 
Movistar takes the last stage as well with Eric being the winner after a great leadout. Sierra looked behind and saw there was no reason to overtake her teammate. Bauernfeind was third.

View: https://twitter.com/Movistar_Team/status/1522200166488580101


 
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And the junior world champion continues the UAE winning streak in Bretagne, but Bastianelli lost the overall lead to Guazzini, the European U23 champion.

 
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Really impressive win for Olivia Baril of Valcar at the Santuário de Arrate in the GP Eibar, not the strongest of fields but still she did it beating a couple of very good climbers in Santesteban and Mavi García. Also impressed at Jelena Erić making it to the summit, ahead of Paula Patiño too.

Baril seems to be developing quickly. Valcar is generally doing pretty well without Balsamo, adn they seem to have kept their great team spirit alive.
 
And she held on to take her first, long awaited win in Europe. Ewers defeated Patiño for 2nd. García made a breaking error in the lasr corner and crashed in a nasty way, but fortunately she was able to get back up after a little bit and make use of her duathlon background and run to the line with her damaged bike.

Quite an emotional win for Gigante after a difficult time with injuries and unfortunate illness.
View: https://twitter.com/Movistar_Team/status/1524069767077933056
 
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Gigante is a gifted rider who is a diesel climber - Still lots to learn in how to ride in a peleton and overcoming her fear - I just hope that the Aussie selectors don't go stupid in the World's - The full support should be behind Brown and if Gigante can snag the under 23 title all the better - The world is her oyster if she more effectively adapts to European life.
Good return by Kristen Faulkner in just her third race day after battling injury - BEX team rode well as a team which gives even more merit to Gigante's performance.

So the flat mates got 2nd and 4th.
 
It's good to have more diesel climbers around as well as variety increases in route. Lucinda Brand is a diesel as a climber and has better results on longer climbs as a result, but otherwise you're left with the likes of Mavi García and Katrine Aalerud who are great climbers who will end up in the top 10 of mountainous stage races with regularity, but are often not explosive enough for the short hills that proliferate in women's cycling especially in the one day races, reducing their value in the market. Gigante also has good flat time trial strength too, of course, so being in a squad where she can learn from Annemiek van freaking Vleuten is about as good a spot as she could get.

Pack skills and placement in the bunch are underappreciated challenges to develop (both physically in terms of knowing where to be and getting there, and psychologically), and this can especially be so - even where elite physical talent is self-evident - for riders who have either started late (e.g. Evelyn Stevens, Primož Roglič, Michael Woods, Mavi García) or who have dominated either small domestic scenes or younger categories so have not been in large packs for much of that time (e.g. Mara Abbott, Remco Evenepoel, Chloe Dygert). Hopefully she can continue to develop that and get used to the larger and more evenly-distributed European/WWT péloton.
 
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