The Women's Road Racing Thread 2016

[PremierAndrew]

Anyone got a link for coverage of the women's FW?

 

[Jonhard]

Re:

Anyone got a link for coverage of the women's FW?

Ain't no such thing.

All over now anyway... Rabo's "comeback" continues with Anna van der Breggen taking the win on the Mur.

 

[BigMac]

What an amazing Top 10. Moreover, look at those time gaps! Did all that carnage happen on the Mur?

I'm guessing it was very similar to last year, but I didn't watch it last year too.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

You have to remember that the women's Flèche has basically no flat, it doesn't have the lead-in, it's just up and down from the beginning, which is very unusual on the calendar. We'll have to wait to find out if highlights clips go back further than just the Mur to find out, but usually you're left with a pretty élite group before the last climb anyway.

It's crazy to think that the Rabobank team that annihilated all comers in 2014 is now relegated, if not to underdog, then at least to secondary, status by the Boels team, who manage to stick two on the podium yet again - also of course with Marianne out and PFP riding a reduced calendar, Rabo have been reliant on those without a sprint to get results, which has meant they are often the ones called upon to make a race active. Stunning top 15, just all among the top riders. Jasinska the nearest thing to an interloper, but she's had an excellent season so far and with Cauz absent was the logical leader for Alé. Jolanda keeps on showing well in her one-woman furrow she's ploughing for Servetto-Footon, while Garfoot gets her first notable results in Europe of the season. Hard to argue with anybody up there. Feel a bit for Amialiusik, she must have been a bit isolated on the climb, but looks like a good finish with top names battling. And Anna is of course the reigning champion and the reigning Giro winner, so she's one of the elite climbers out there.

Armitstead and PFP were a bit quieter than you might expect, but the former has been sick and her team has better options for this race, and the latter has done very little road racing this year and her teammate won.

Now please UCI, give us at least a last 10 mins video.

 

[Jonhard]

La PFP is off her food too apparently.

Judging by the live ticker earlier, the damage was done on the second last climb where a group of five formed from a much reduced lead group of maybe 30-40 - Stevens, Guarnier, Anna, Kasia and ELB. Stevens and AvdB then escaped and hit the Mur together, with Anna too strong for Evie to stay with. That group of five shattered and so, seemingly, did the remnants of the lead group behind.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

They need to start broadcasting that instead of the men's race, that suggests this had a much more intriguing race development than the Subida a Huy, even if everybody loves that final 2k. Hopefully Pauline is ok; Boels tweet that this is Lizzie's last race day for a while (presumably until Yorkshire and then the ToB) and having missed the start of Bira she was a bit undercooked form-wise, but even so, a hard-raced Flèche Wallonne would be a struggle for her I think, she's explosive but she's tended to show characteristics more typical of a power climber rather than a finesse one so although at 2km in length the Mur is theoretically within her remit (she's been 2nd before), I feel that unless she was still at her Strade Bianche-type peak level and the couple of climbs before Huy were fairly quiet, she may still have struggled to be the best on the final climb.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

While the men are having the annual World Tour Riders' Ardennes Hills Club Ride, the women are racing in Dwars door de Westhoek, and we have a 12 woman escape which has been thinned down by attacks by Marianne Vos on the Rodeberg. We have Vos, Niewiadoma and van der Breggen for Rabo, Johansson, Majerus, Alexis Ryan, Loren Rowney, Elena Cecchini, Katrin Garfoot, Maria Giulia Confalonieri, Demi de Jong, Valérie Demey and Eileen Roe around 30" up on the bunch, with the Rabo trio doing most of the work to keep them away.

Edit... now up to 50", this could be the decisive move. A lot will depend on how happy Wiggle and Boels are with their representation in the group, as Majerus and Johansson can definitely outsprint Anna and Kasia (Marianne is of course another matter), but Rabo can play the numbers game.

The first two groups have come back together as they head to the final circuit, 3 laps of an 11km circuit to come. The head of the field now numbers 24. Hannah Barnes and Thalita de Jong are definitely back on as they've been named by their teams, and potentially also Giorgia Bronzini, Mieke Kröger, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Karol-Ann Canuel and Chloe Hosking. They had been in the chase group but when it caught back on it was a bit smaller than it had been before so we're not totally sure who was dropped from it just yet.

Right, a group of eight has now made a move, not sure who's in it let alone who instigated it yet, waiting on race radio.

OK! Make that nine, the group is: Anna van der Breggen, Marianne Vos, Thalita de Jong (Rabo), Emma Johansson (Wiggle), Christine Majerus, Demi de Jong (Boels), Katrin Garfoot (Orica), Elena Cecchini, Alexis Ryan (Canyon-SRAM). They have 22 seconds over the rest of the splintered group, not clear who's working and I'd think most of the big teams are fairly happy with their representation. Demi de Jong is very young but Majerus is good in a tough, technical sprint, Canyon will be happy with Cecchini there, Rabo obviously have Vos and the highest number there, while Wiggle continue their tendency this year of being under-represented leaving Johansson outnumbered, but she's got one of the strongest finishes of those remaining and is on excellent form.

Yea, it looks like these nine will dispute the win, all impetus has gone out of the chase and the group now has more than a minute and a half. With about 10k to go both de Jongs were dropped, then worked together to get back on, then one of them attacked the bunch. Reporting hazy. With 5k to go Emma Johansson attacked, deciding not to trust herself in the sprint when Rabo, Boels and Canyon have leadout opportunities, and pulled out a short gap, but with 3k remaining they hauled her back in, which allowed Katrin Garfoot to make a move, which was inevitable since she was isolated in the group and doesn't have a sprint weapon to the same extent as many others in the group but, like with Johansson, the Rabo, Boels and Canyon teams having the advantage of numbers meant she wasn't allowed to get far... the usual problem of people not tweeting at the business end as they need to concentrate on what's going on rather delays information coming through (fair enough of course, but one of the frustrations of following women's cycling).

OK - now we have the reason for it, Marianne Vos crashed in the sprint, losing control of her bike (which is VERY uncharacteristic for her) and careening into the barriers, and Christine Majerus takes the victory in the wreckage! Boels had gone a few days without a UCI victory, and so it was time to go on the rampage! A technical sprint is always a good one for Majerus, who isn't as fast in a pure speed test but with some slight uphill sprints or complex run-ins she has great burst and good placement skills, and that Cecchini was 2nd shows this is more one for the durable sprinters (albeit still straightforward enough to be won by the best sprinters of those remaining in the group). Majerus is also a big rouleur domestique for Boels and her tireless work controlling moves early on has been a big part of their success over the last couple of years, so while I'm a little down on yet further Boels domination (I know, very hypocritical when I'm pro-Rabo, although I was less so back in 2014, but since Vos has been out they've been lacking in sprinters so have been key animators of races as a result) it's nice to see Christine get a victory that's due to her. Emma Johansson was third, because she's Emma Johansson so of course she was.

1 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) LUX
2 Elena Cecchini (Canyon-SRAM) ITA
3 Emma Johansson (Wiggle-High5) SWE

Reports that while her bike was badly damaged, Marianne herself was ok, a little shaken but unhurt.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Reports from the team that Marianne has nothing broken but some severe road rash. She crossed the line under her own steam to pick up 9th place from the remainder group.

1 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) LUX
2 Elena Cecchini (Canyon-SRAM) ITA
3 Emma Johansson (Wiggle-High5) SWE
4 Katrin Garfoot (Orica-AIS) AUS
5 Anna van der Breggen (Rabo-Liv) NED
6 Demi de Jong (Boels-Dolmans) NED
7 Thalita de Jong (Rabo-Liv) NED
8 Alexis Ryan (Canyon-SRAM) USA
9 Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv) NED
10 Maria Giulia Confalonieri (Lensworld-Zanatta) ITA
11 Jeanne Korevaar (Rabo-Liv) NED
12 Valérie Demey (Topsport Vlaanderen-Etixx) BEL
13 Chanella Stougje (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental) NED
14 Kelly van den Steen (Topsport Vlaanderen-Etixx) BEL
15 Loren Rowney (Orica-AIS) AUS

Here's a picture from the sprint, posted on the Boels-Dolmans team twitter:

Cobbles + sprint + barriers with legs sticking out = recipe for disaster, I'm afraid. Not smart. Not as dangerous as the País Vasco cones-on-top-of-bollards-cos-we-forgot-once-cars-are-removed-they-would-be-in-the-road debacle of a couple of years ago, but still, might need a rethink.

 

[Brullnux]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/apr/25/nicole-cooke-cycling-sexism-jess-varnish-shane-sutton

Deserves to be here too, as Cooke mentions mostly road cycling

 

[Brullnux]

Cooke writes very well, I'm surprised as sportspeople don't usually write that well. Or maybe I should just stop following football, where the average player's knowledge is made up of a simple grasp of their own languages, possibly an even simpler grasp of the language of the country they now live in and number bonds to ten. Seriously, Derek Zoolander would be a certified genius in that world.

But anyway, she makes great points about Cookson's inadequacy in raising the profile/pay of women in cycling and the problem within British Cycling, especially considering now the best British cyclist is currently Lizzie Armistead.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I've had some fairly lengthy discussions before on the raw deal BC gave Cooke, and basically it seems every female roadie until Armitstead came along, and Cookson's promises vs. what he's delivered (on a range of subjects, not just this one...). Suffice to say that while I accept Nicole's bloody-mindedness played a part in why she was considered hard to work with and helped make her own bed in that respect, neither BC nor the UCI come out of this smelling of roses in the slightest.

As for Sutton's comments on Varnish being too old and going away to start a family, the last UCI-rated women's race was the GP Liberazione PINK in Italy, which was won by Marta Bastianelli; she's had a storied career, with the World Championship, eating disorders, weight loss supplement positives and a doping ban, a horrendous training crash requiring facial reconstruction surgery, and taking time out to start a family, but she's still only going to turn 29 on Saturday and winning races...

 

[Brullnux]

Just a question Libertine, why do you think that women cyclists are believed to lose their talent/decline much earlier than men? I know that track cyclists usually retire younger than roadies, but take Bastianelli for example. She's 29 and it is made to seem as if she is very old. If she were a man, then she'd be made out to be just reaching her peak now. It's certainly not the case in other endurance sports like athletics and marathons.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

Just a question Libertine, why do you think that women cyclists are believed to lose their talent/decline much earlier than men? I know that track cyclists usually retire younger than roadies, but take Bastianelli for example. She's 29 and it is made to seem as if she is very old. If she were a man, then she'd be made out to be just reaching her peak now. It's certainly not the case in other endurance sports like athletics and marathons.

I think there's a range of factors and it varies place to place. For example, Emma Johansson is 32, and is retiring after the Olympics. It seems early, as she's still a threat to win almost any race she enters. Tatiana Guderzo by contrast is 31 and seems like she's very much on the wind-down with her best performances now 3-4-5 years ago. Megan Guarnier on the other hand turns 31 next week and has been a significantly better rider over the last couple of years than she was previously, likewise Ash Moolman who's 30.

In general, North American riders tend to peak later and race on when they're older. Maybe a lot of that is that they tend to spend a few years in the American domestic péloton (notwithstanding unusual cases like Evelyn Stevens) before coming over to the European teams, who are recruiting from their own local scenes, and so only the best or most determined riders make it. By contrast, in Europe there seems to be a fairly significant number of young talents who get to race against the international péloton early (in part due to a relatively lacking depth of field) and the most talented will be brought through the ranks quickly. Elena Cecchini has been pretty scathing in the past about the Italian teams' ability to develop riders - certainly it can be seen with quite a few examples, riders like Rossella Ratto looked like potential world beaters - she was incredible with Hitec, a Norwegian team with a good reputation on that front, but since returning to the Italian domestic teams her results have gone southward (although the farce that was the second half of the Estado de México season won't have helped); the best-performing Italians in the last couple of years have been those like Cecchini herself, Guarischi and Longo Borghini who are racing elsewhere, or those like Giorgia Bronzini who are long established as among the top names in the sport. Bastianelli is a perfect example of that, a super young talent who won the Worlds too young (by her own admission, the rainbow jersey was "too heavy for me" at that time), was pressured to become more of an all-rounder to give Italy its next big star, which of course led to the eating disorder and the positive test. It feels like Marta's been around forever but also feels like she's kind of a blast from the past now owing to the lean few years and the baby break and that it's now nine years since she won the Worlds. She's also a very different rider to the one she was, and in fairness Alé-Cipollini are the one Italian team who seem to be doing a good job of having a solid presence and bringing riders through even if their big name at present is Francesca Cauz, one of the most inconsistent and flaky riders in the bunch.

Another factor that just sprung to mind that will factor into the differing elements in the péloton is education; because there's less money in women's cycling a lot of pros race alongside their studies or to supplement them. This means that even the very best will sometimes disappear early (e.g. Emma Pooley taking part-time lower-tier rides so she can finish her PhD) but also, riders who are picked up by good teams when they're 19-20 years old but not the megaprospects that end on the Boels/Rabo/Wiggle-type superteams may develop for a few years then decide they're never going to get to the top, they're not getting enough money to progress, and either quit or have to split time; because many of the new world racers have to up sticks and move to race in Europe, they will complete that stuff beforehand and focus on their cycling career at an older age.

None of this is more than finger-in-the-air stuff, mind, and there are a range of other factors, just like with the men - riders retiring in disillusionment at teams collapsing or races collapsing, and of course motherhood - some riders like Marta or Olga Zabelinskaya return fairly quickly, others will just choose to never come back.

 

[Jonhard]

There does seem to be a pattern of female GB cyclists succeeding despite British Cycling rather than because of it. Cook, Pooley, Pendleton and Armitstead don’t really have a good word to say between them. Brailsford always said he wanted athletes in the program to be uncomfortable, challenged and pushed… that’s fine when you have success but when you don’t, things start to get wobbly.

As far as Jess Varnish goes, it might be reasonable to drop her in favour of James – she was double world champ in 2013 – and maybe even to prefer Katy Marchant. But if so, do it with some degree of professionalism and humanity. Show her the performance data, explain it.

It seems noteworthy to me that BC were basically happy to shrug off the sexism accusations, but suspend Sutton as soon as he is accused of calling the paracyclists “gimps”. Having said that, I think they have improved what they do with GB girls in the program, taking them to road races etc. Sutton will always be an old-school Aussie though.

 

[King Boonen]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/36153485

And he's done. GTFO.

 

[RedheadDane]

http://www.postnorddanmarkrundt.dk/postnord-lancerer-kvindecykelloeb-med-rekordstore-praemier/

In conjection to stage two of the Tour of Denmark there'll be a Ladies Criterium in and around Sønderborg with prize money equal to those for the stage in the men's race.
The hope is in time to organise a stage race.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

That would be good, especially if they can follow a similar type of course to the men - the Vejle circuit would be awesome with women's cycling as it's both relentlessly up-and-down but without any real long climbs, but also very technical. It has struck me as strange that while the country seems to really love its cycling and there is a long history of Danish talents at least at the espoir level, their presence in the women's péloton is minimal - there's only Julie Leth, who's coming off a pretty major injury, and Amalie Dideriksen who's still very young and, as she's riding for the stacked Boels team, likely won't get selections at a number of larger races due to their depth unless she really catches the eye in a particular type of race perhaps.

 

[RedheadDane]

The way I understood it, the circuit for this year's criterium is the final circuit of the stage in the men's race.
Suppose it would be something similar if they managed to arrange a stage race for the women.

 

[Mozart92]

I was thinking...in order to breathe new life into women's cycling... why not allowing women to race alongside men? I've seen this in my country (Italy) during under23 races and it worked fine, the first of the women who crossed the line got the win, simple as that. This way we solve the lack of races, the lack of tv coverage...

I don't know what would happen on long and hard stages, probably the strongest among the women would probably finish very far away from the top riders, but on flat stages it would be fairly easy for them to stay in the peloton.

 

[saganftw]

Re:

I was thinking...in order to breathe new life into women's cycling... why not allowing women to race alongside men? I've seen this in my country (Italy) during under23 races and it worked fine, the first of the women who crossed the line got the win, simple as that. This way we solve the lack of races, the lack of tv coverage...

I don't know what would happen on long and hard stages, probably the strongest among the women would probably finish very far away from the top riders, but on flat stages it would be fairly easy for them to stay in the peloton.

thats something i would like to watch,however two problems are imediately on my mind - first the logistics of a race like that would be enourmous,can you imagine 200 men + 100 women and all the cars,motorbikes...the road is already crowded as it is,maybe in small races it would be fine,but it would be way to much for biggest races - and second i cannot imagine the backlash on the internet as soon as all women would get inevitably dropped,or god forbid if a woman caused a crash,thats a recipe for disaster in internet age

 

[Mozart92]

Re: Re:

I was thinking...in order to breathe new life into women's cycling... why not allowing women to race alongside men? I've seen this in my country (Italy) during under23 races and it worked fine, the first of the women who crossed the line got the win, simple as that. This way we solve the lack of races, the lack of tv coverage...

I don't know what would happen on long and hard stages, probably the strongest among the women would probably finish very far away from the top riders, but on flat stages it would be fairly easy for them to stay in the peloton.

thats something i would like to watch,however two problems are imediately on my mind - first the logistics of a race like that would be enourmous,can you imagine 200 men + 100 women and all the cars,motorbikes...the road is already crowded as it is,maybe in small races it would be fine,but it would be way to much for biggest races - and second i cannot imagine the backlash on the internet as soon as all women would get inevitably dropped,or god forbid if a woman caused a crash,thats a recipe for disaster in internet age

A solution could be having them race 30 minutes or so ahead of the men, like they did with the Tour of Flanders. This way we solve the logistic problem and keep them separated while avoiding internet memes.

 

[saganftw]

Re: Re:

I was thinking...in order to breathe new life into women's cycling... why not allowing women to race alongside men? I've seen this in my country (Italy) during under23 races and it worked fine, the first of the women who crossed the line got the win, simple as that. This way we solve the lack of races, the lack of tv coverage...

I don't know what would happen on long and hard stages, probably the strongest among the women would probably finish very far away from the top riders, but on flat stages it would be fairly easy for them to stay in the peloton.

thats something i would like to watch,however two problems are imediately on my mind - first the logistics of a race like that would be enourmous,can you imagine 200 men + 100 women and all the cars,motorbikes...the road is already crowded as it is,maybe in small races it would be fine,but it would be way to much for biggest races - and second i cannot imagine the backlash on the internet as soon as all women would get inevitably dropped,or god forbid if a woman caused a crash,thats a recipe for disaster in internet age

A solution could be having them race 30 minutes or so ahead of the men, like they did with the Tour of Flanders. This way we solve the logistic problem and keep them separated while avoiding internet memes.

tour of flanders was actually a great example of why there is so little money in womens cycling,it was broadcasted very little (i only saw the pictures from static cameras) and yet ppl complained anyway because they wanted to watch mens race obvious solution would be two broadcasts on two separate channels but good luck finding television willing to do that

 

[TMP402]

Re:

I was thinking...in order to breathe new life into women's cycling... why not allowing women to race alongside men? I've seen this in my country (Italy) during under23 races and it worked fine, the first of the women who crossed the line got the win, simple as that. This way we solve the lack of races, the lack of tv coverage...

I don't know what would happen on long and hard stages, probably the strongest among the women would probably finish very far away from the top riders, but on flat stages it would be fairly easy for them to stay in the peloton.

As a nuance of that, how about a race where all the teams are 50% female, and on half the stages the winner can only be a woman.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

In Belgium, Sporza offered RvV in two streams, women online, men on TV. And while some people may have complained because they wanted to watch the men, that position was by no means universal (for one thing, the stream of the women's race kept having trouble because of bandwidth issues caused by greater demand than expected - although I do accept that while many had the choice of either race, others without the ability to watch TV via the internet at the time of the race or in countries where only one race was being broadcast and they didn't cut to the men's race until after the women had finished may have had different positions) and besides, there are always some people who will be annoyed that the coverage they want is being superseded by something they perceive as less important. I mean, there are multiple years we've seen people complaining about Eurosport's priorities on the forum because they wouldn't cut to the freaking Tour of Qatar until a delayed skiing World Championship race was over.

As I've said many times, the problem is chicken-and-egg. There's very little money in women's cycling, therefore there are few real specialists and the sport is less developed. As a result if it is broadcast, people don't know the names, and don't really care about the action. You can see the key moves being made, but if you don't know who's who, you don't know why a given move is important and also, more importantly, you've got little to talk about until the key moves are made, whereas because men's cycling has such a large cast, we can blather about the very artificial BOTD action (I mean seriously, how many stages have we seen where the broadcast starts with three little-heralded domestiques a few minutes up the road, the bunch carefully plans out where to catch them, they're brought back and we have a sprint? Hundreds. Yet we don't say "men's cycling is boring", we say "flat stages at the Tour de France are boring" or "the Tour Down Under is boring" or whatever race has drawn ire that time. You say that the small cast makes it dull (notwithstanding that the smaller teams that results means some interesting racing, but the problem is the number of riders at the top is comparatively small), but a lot of that is that relatively few women can afford to make a living from the sport, and those are the ones that can spend the most time training and working for their cycling so inevitably those are the ones that are the most successful.

The argument goes that they shouldn't get funding because there's no interest, but in most places there hasn't been the opportunity given to them to garner that interest. In most places we're saying "nobody cares about women's cycling", but how do we know? Because it's not being broadcast? But if you don't have the chance to watch it, how can you discover an interest in it? I didn't wake up one day and think "I'm going to devour every bit of information about cycling I can". I became interested because I saw a race that passed where I was living at the time, watched the end of it on the TV to try and make sense of what I saw, and thought "this looks interesting, I'll have to check more of this out". And then, because men's cycling is on TV plenty, I did so, learned the characters of the péloton, tactics, and so on. If you watch a women's race and you find it entertaining, you'd have to be stupendously dedicated to learn that way, because of how infrequent the coverage is, and the chances to watch races live and get invested in them as they happen is even rarer. Do I blame people who say "yea, I'll watch the women at the Worlds or the Olympics, but I'm not interested enough to make the effort to follow it year-round"? Hell no. I don't even have a problem with those who say "because of that, I don't even really care about their race at the Worlds or Olympics, since I'm not invested enough". Most cycling fans aren't the super-fans who'll hunt around for streams or highlights of the GP des Marbriers or the Vuelta a Asturias either. But to go the Pete Kennaugh "nobody should care about you because nobody cares about you" route is just not productive (and leads to posts like this in the thread that was specifically designed to prevent discussions like this breaking out periodically across the board). Look at the crowds generated by the Women's Tour in the UK - sure, lots of casual fans who couldn't name you more than about five riders - mostly Britons, mostly because of the track team - but there are also lots of those at the men's races too.

To address the other suggestions made, the idea of the women riding ahead of the men works on some levels but not on others. At races like Gent-Wevelgem, Strade Bianche, de Ronde and Flèche it's fine, as the women's race is shorter, so starting both at the same time does not cause any problem in overlap. Multi-class racing à la Le Mans is also mooted above, but (imo sensibly) rejected due to the issue of different paces of pélotons - in cyclocross at the lower level this is exactly what does happen and it isn't problematic as everybody is generally either on their own or in a small group, but in road racing because of the high quantity of pack racing it wouldn't really be feasible (plus UCI restrictions on race lengths vary too of course). Also you'd have to make a very clear protocol - in circuit racing at present in both men's and women's cycling, lapped traffic is pulled off the course to allow the leaders through; in XC skiing the onus is on the athlete being lapped to get out of the way of those lapping them, in sportscar racing the onus is on the faster car to make their way safely through. Of course at a lot of races the point-to-point multi-start option is not a possibility - take circuit-based races. That said, I think races like the Canadian one-dayers could be good spots for a men's and women's race on the same day or alternating, much like with Plouay or the Philadelphia International - there's local interest, the course would be perfectly good for racing (and Worlds prep of course) and because the crowd would already be out there, they can maximise the audience.

I don't favour the imposition of women's teams on World Tour teams because the interest varies (just look at how the Cervélo Test Team, given a lot of promotion by Cervélo, were relegated to afterthoughts after the Garmin merger and cast aside after a year); I would ideally like women's cycling to have the chance to succeed under its own steam and develop organically rather than by being imposed on teams from above and turning into a facsimile of the men's racing. If it has a fair chance to sink or swim and it sinks, then so be it. But at the moment it is only rarely being given the chance to swim - and not often enough to make more than a few strokes either.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Anyway, back to the actual racing.

We have two pretty good level stage races going on at present, first Graciá-Orlová, a four-day Czech race consisting of hilly stages and a short ITT. The first stage was yesterday, with a slight but not really major uphill finish that was won by Alena Amialiusik (think like the Boulogne-sur-Mer stage of the Tour a couple of years ago - uphill but not causing major timegaps) who escaped in the run-in and came in 16" ahead of the group, the sprint for second led home by Cecchini ahead of the in-form Ane Santesteban for Alé-Cipollini. Those two teams are the biggest teams in the race, though there is some reasonable opposition with much of the Italian péloton there along with BTC City-Ljubljana, and in the various national squads there are some top level riders such as Shara Gillow and Jessie Daams. In the second stage Olena Pavlukhina, the Ukrainian-turned-Azerbaijani riding for BTC, soloed in well ahead of a splintered field, with a chasing group of 35 breaking apart as the run-in continued, with Santesteban, Gillow, Vilmann and Szybiak stealing some seconds at the end. As a result, going into the weekend, Pavlukhina leads with 2'09" to Amialiusik and 2'10" to Santesteban; she will lose some of that to Alena in the chrono but not a huge amount over 13,5km, but with Canyon being stronger than BTC it could set up an interesting final stage on a lumpy circuit.

The second race on this weekend is a pretty beloved women's race, the three day Festival Elsy Jacobs, a race through the hills of Luxembourg which almost invariably produces interesting racing with small but important time gaps each day. The field is very strong, with stacked lineups from Orica, Rabo-Liv, Cervélo and half-strength teams from Boels and Wiggle (who have key interest in the Tour de Yorkshire tomorrow of course) - the former with Ellen van Dijk and hometown favourite Christine Majerus leading, the latter with Emma J, ELB, Pieters and Bronzini but no worker bees. The race opened up with a prologue, which proved unsurprising in two clear ways:
- the 5 biggest teams provided 16 of the top 17 riders on the day, Nina Kessler of Lensworld-Zannata in 7th the interloper
- Annemiek van Vleuten won

Yes, Annemiek has really proven herself to be the queen of the prologue over the last two years, especially when things get technical, and so it proved here, as she won 4" ahead of Marianne Vos and 5" ahead of Ellen van Dijk. Because of the short distance however, lots of dangerous names at close quarters: Garfoot (although a teammate of Annemiek's) and Knetemann +6", Emma J, Majerus and Anna VDB +9", Lepistö and Moolman +10", ELB +12", Niewiadoma +17", Lichtenberg and Spratt +20".