Canyon//SRAM: Huntresses become the hunted
The German racing team Canyon//SRAM celebrated the biggest victory in its history last year: In a nerve-wracking finish, Kasia Niewiadoma saved the yellow jersey by four seconds during the ride to Alpe d'Huez and won the Tour de France. While team boss Ronny Lauke's riders also benefited from the confusion at top team SD Worx last year, they are now the ones whose opponents are lying in wait for mistakes. However, the team is stronger than ever for the new season: Antonia Niedermaier has shown with two world championship titles in the U23 class that she has arrived at the top of the world. The strong climber Ricarda Bauernfeind has recovered after a lengthy knee injury. Lauke has also signed the versatile and extroverted Dane Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig. The Jäger must be strong.
Anna van der Breggen makes her comeback
She's back - Anna van der Breggen was world champion, Olympic champion and won the Giro d'Italia, once the most prestigious tour on the women's racing calendar, four times. She then had enough of the chase in the saddle and worked for three years as sports director at Team SD Worx. Apparently, the 34-year-old Dutchwoman was not done with cycling yet. She is returning to the racing saddle with SD Worx - Protime for the new season. Allegedly not because she still lacks a Tour victory in her huge palmarès. When she retired at the end of 2021, the race did not yet exist. "I'm curious to see what level I can return to. Of course I want to become a better cyclist than I was in my previous phase," says van der Breggen. She has to share the leading role in the team with world champion Lotte Kopecky.
FDJ-Suez: With Vollering to Tour victory?
France has been waiting a long time for a Tour victory. In the men's race, Bernhard Hinault was the last Frenchman to do so - in 1985, in the distant past. In the women's race, it was Jeannie Longo who won the predecessor to the Tour de France Femmes in 1989. And Greg LeMond won in 1990 in the jersey of Z - a French team. Now the French team FDJ-Suez is taking up the challenge and wants to be successful in the new season at the season highlight on home soil: To this end, they have signed Demi Vollering, who won the Tour of France in 2022 and only narrowly missed out on overall victory against Poland's Kasia Niewiadoma last year after a crash. In addition to up-and-coming climbing specialist Evita Muzic, Juliette Labous has also been signed and could currently form the strongest tour squad in women's cycling.
Farewell tour from Elizabeth Deignan
Now it's over for good, says British cyclist Elizabeth Deignan. She has had two children and has successfully returned to cycling. Her husband, the Irish ex-professional Philip Deignan, looks after the children when mum is chasing success again. The 35-year-old from Yorkshire was world champion, winning Flanders, Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. She also won the premiere of the women's race at Paris-Roubaix 2021 with an outstanding solo. The success on the Pavé almost four years ago was her last of 43 professional victories - between the two baby breaks in 2018 and 2022. Will she manage one last coup on her farewell tour in 2025?
Shooting star Cat Ferguson
The 18-year-old Brit has barely appeared on the scene and is already regarded as the next star of women's cycling. At the World Championships in Zurich, she won the junior road race and individual time trial titles. She dominated the competitions in her age group at will - in the new season she will start as a professional with Movistar alongside Liane Lippert. "From the school bench to the World Tour" was the headline in the British trade journal Cycling Weekly.
1.50 metres ...
... tall is Gaia Realini. The 23-year-old Italian from Team Lidl-Trek is the smallest female professional cyclist in the world. Realini, who comes from the coastal town of Pescara, is already one of the best female climbers in the peloton - she has proven this as third in the Giro and fifth in the Tour. At the other extreme is Dutch rider Anneke Dijkstra from the future pro team Volker Wessels. At 1.85 metres, she is the tallest in the peloton and, apart from her height, is far less conspicuous than Realini.
The 2025 racing calendar
The Women's World Tour race calendar is growing: in future, there will also be a Milan-San Remo race for women - albeit on a much shorter route than for the men. As with the men's race, the Copenhagen Sprint, a flat one-day race, will also be part of the most important race series for women at its premiere. The Tour of Scandinavia is also set to take place again in the new season. The race was cancelled last year due to financial problems. While the top series is growing internationally, women's cycling in Germany remains a tender seedling. None of the major cycling races in Germany has yet added a women's race. Germany is not represented on the World Tour calendar. The most important races are the Tour of Thuringia and the one-day Women's Grand Prix in Stuttgart, both of which belong to the second-highest race category, the Pro Series.
Andreas Kublik
Editor
