In just two years, the women’s version of Strade Bianche has been elevated to a position at the top of the sport and captured attention just as quickly as the men’s version did.
An unfortunate quirk of disappearing sponsorship in Qatar means that, in 2017, the event kicks off the Women’s World Tour with Siena’s Piazza del Campo hosting the finish of one of the most beautiful events on the racing calendar.
The spring landscape of Tuscany provides the gorgeous backdrop to a 127-kilometre race, which features a quarter of the distance (more or less) on the white gravel roads which give the event its name and identity.
Eight gravel sections face the riders, with the first four coming inside the opening 40 kilometres. Sector two is a short but nasty uphill to Ville di Corsano.
The undulating sector five is a beast, at 9.5 kilometres, ending as the road climbs through the Crete Senesi hills by San Martino in Grania, while the final sector is – again – short, but fearsomely steep. 18% gradients lie in wait and may prove either the launchpad for a late attack or the graveyard of hope for a breakaway.
Boels Dolmans have the stranglehold on the event: Megan Guarnier won in glorious solo fashion in 2015, and Lizzie Deignan (then Armitstead) outpowered Kasia Niewiadoma and Emma Johansson on the last ascent to the line last year.
For the then-World champion, it was another station on a glorious spring trajectory, but this year she’ll arguably face more challengers – from within her own team as well as from rival squads. Joining the Boels Dolman’s attack for the event are Olympic champion Anna Van Der Breggen and World Champion Amelie Dideriksen. DS Danny Stam’s problem might be figuring out how to balance such an equation of talent, and the two ‘support riders’ are capable of leading teams themselves (Majerus and Canuel).
Like Deignan, another ex-rainbow jersey making a season debut is Canyon-SRAM’s Pauline Ferrand-Prevot who certainly has the all-round skills (as a cyclocross and MTB world champion) to handle the gravel roads whether the dust clouds swirl or the rain turns the roads to treacle.
Asciano is one of villages touched by #StradeBianche. Crete Senesi is a unique landscape! pic.twitter.com/rPUKeE0Jq9
— Strade Bianche (@StradeBianche) March 2, 2017
Yet another ex-world champion to hit the race is Marianne Vos, who’s never done Strade Bianche before due to injuries. Her WM3 team have Niewiadoma, and Australia’s Lauren Kitchen who could be a surprise package.
Orica-Scott bring Annemiek Van Vleuten and Gracie Elvin, while Cervelo-Bigla line up with a team devoted to Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, another rider in form and with the requisite climbing legs for the course.
Overall, though, cyclical.cc is picking home favourite Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle High5) as the winner. The Italian is in terrific form after two storming rides in Belgium’s opening weekend, one of which opened the way for team-mate Jolien D’hoore’s win at Omloop van het Hageland. If it comes to guts and tactical smarts, Elisa L-B might be best placed to take advantage of any in-race confusion among Boels Dolman’s four-pronged attack.