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2017 Women’s WorldTour kicks off Saturday at Strade Bianche

Second season adds four races to the calendar

February 28, 2017
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The wait is over. Come Saturday the second UCI Women’s WorldTour launches at the Strade Bianche, the third running of the women’s edition of the increasingly popular “white roads” race in Italy. WorldTour action comes to a close September 10 at the Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta.


For 2017, the Amstel Gold and Liège–Bastogne–Liège races have been added to the Flanders Classics lineup, and the Ladies Tour of Norway and Ladies Holland Tour are slated for August. Last year there were no stage races past early July.

In the Women’s WorldTour inaugural season Canada’s Leah Kirchmann placed runner-up to American Megan Guarnier in the overall standings, sewing up the spot after placing 11th in the Madrid Challenge.


Kirchmann’s Liv-Plantur is now Team Sunweb and the Canadian will be racing Saturday in Italy, looking to get her WorldTour season off on the right foot with another top-10.

Another Canadian in the 2016 WorldTour top-20 was Joëlle Numainville, who switched to Cylance Pro Cycling after finishing 18th in the final standings with Cervelo-Bigla.

Other notable transfers include French 2014 world champion (and 2015 world cyclocross and mountain bike champion) Pauline Ferrand-Prévot signing with Canyon-SRAM from Rabobank-Liv, a squad now called WM3 Energie. Ellen van Dijk (The Netherlands) and American sprint dynamo Coryn Rivera bolster Team Sunweb. European road champion Anna van der Breggen (The Netherlands) moves from WM3 Energie to Boels-Dolmans. Aussie Chloe Hosking heads to Alé Cipollini from Wiggle High5. Cylance also nabbed 2016 Worlds runner-up Kirsten Wild (The Netherlands), winner of last year’s WorldTour round at the RideLondon Classique.
https://twitter.com/CylanceCycling/status/836377195849236480
Van der Breggen’s Boels-Dolmans is still the strongest squad in the WorldTour, having placed four riders in the top-seven last season. With Guarnier, Chantal Blaak, Lizzie Deignan (née Armitstead), Canadian Karol-Ann Canuel, and Danish world champion Amalie Dideriksen, it’s a formidable crew.

Besides Boels-Dolmans, WM3 Energie and Team Sunweb, the other heavy hitters continue to be Wiggle High5, Orica-Scott, Alé-Cipollini and Canyon-SRAM.

The key stage race will once again be the Giro d’Italia Femminile or Giro Rosa in early July, ten straight days of grueling action. Can Kirchmann wear the pink again?

For 2017 La Course by Le Tour de France, which had taken place on the Tour de France’s final day in Paris in its first three incarnations, has moved to July 20, coinciding with the Tour de France’s 18th stage finishing on the Col d’Izoard. Instead of a sprintfest, it’ll be one for the mountain goats. At the conclusion of a 66-km route, the peloton will clamber skyward. Although the Izoard is 14.1-km at 7.3%, the women’s peloton will climb the first 10-km up to Casse Déserte, a 9% ascent.