STAYING THE COURSE

January 18 ^th 2022 - 12:00

How could we possibly forget Anna van der Breggen's sacrifice last 25 April, when she single-handedly drove the lead group in the finale of Liège–Bastogne–Liège? The two-time world champion pulled the breakaway until the finish, setting up her compatriot and teammate Demi Vollering to turn on the afterburners and sprint to the win. Normal service was thus resumed with the restoration of the Dutch hegemony after Brit Lizzie Deignan's triumph in 2020.

Those memories also tell the story of how the "Women's Old Lady", an increasingly fiercely contested event, kicked it up a notch from one season to the next: the winner's average speed dropped from over 38 km/h in 2020 to a mere 36 km/h on a tougher course a few months later. Having taken the race to a whole new level, there is no need to further spice up the route, not least because the women's course, stretching for over 120 km, is very much on par with the men's.

The riders will have to go into the red as early as the intense Mont-le-Soie–Wanne–Haute-Levée trilogy before approaching La Redoute via the gruelling Côte de Desnié, a superb find added last spring, on more technical and secure roads than before, when the race took the peloton over the Col du Maquisard. The finale, where the fearsome Roche aux Faucons remains a formidable challenge, promises a thrilling spectacle at a time when, looking ahead to the exciting adventures of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, a changing of the guard starts to loom on the horizon.

Christian Prudhomme