Mixing the different disciplines of cycling is a great ability, for the occasional riders and the stars alike. Road rider Tom Pidcock (GBR) showed it in the mountain bike event at the Olympic Games, while the likes of Filippo Ganna (ITA) or Lisa Brennauer (GER) shone on the track of the Izu velodrome. The Ladies Tour of Norway (August 12-15) is a new opportunity to watch champions make the most of their versatile talents on the stunning Norwegian roads.
The start list of the season’s second UCI Women’s WorldTour stage race features no less than Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma Women Team), who won 12 rainbow jerseys in UCI World Championships for road, track and cyclo-cross. The Ladies Tour of Norway has historically suited her abilities: she won the last three editions of the race, in 2017, 2018 and 2019, before the event was cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemics.
The return of the Ladies Tour of Norway also sees the event welcome a team entirely dedicated to offering cyclo-cross specialists the opportunity to race on the road. “The main goal remains to complete an interesting road program towards the new cyclo-cross season”, the UCI Women’s Continental Team representative Philip Roodhoft explained as Plantur-Pura (formerly known as Ciclismo Mundial) displayed their new looks and ambitions ahead of the 2021 Classics season. “However, we now know that a well-thought-out combination between road cycling and cyclo-cross is doable.”
The team’s casting is impressive, with established stars of the cyclo-cross season such as Sanne Cant (UCI World Champion in 2017, 2018 and 2019), Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado (2020 UCI World Champion, who also took a medal in the Under 23 category at the 2020 UCI Mountain Bike cross-country Olympic World Championships presented by Mercedes-Benz) and Annemarie Worst (winner of the 2019-2020 UCI World Cup) joining forces on the road with rising talents coming from different horizons.
And Roodhoft has great examples to lead his cyclo-cross experts to success on the road: he’s also the General Manager of Alpecin-Fenix, the UCI ProTeam that built on Mathieu Van der Poel’s exploits to become a prominent force across disciplines, with riders entirely focused on the road season.
“If this introduction is satisfactory, we will expand the team roster in 2022 with a few specific road cyclists”, Roodhoft already announced at the launch of Plantur-Pura. “This way we will be able to complete a more extensive road program, use our cyclo-cross riders in a more targeted manner and eventually copy the multidisciplinary concept of Alpecin-Fenix – since we also have mountain bike talent in the team with Alvarado, [Ronja] Eibl and [Puck] Pieterse.”
The spring classics afforded Sports Director Heidi Van De Vijver and her riders the opportunity to compete at the highest level - with Yara Kastelijn notably finishing 30th in Gent-Wevelgem In Flanders Fields at UCI Women’s WorldTour level. They built on these first events towards the summer and are now coming to Norway with an exciting line-up.
Alvarado will be there, fresh from her appearances in the Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup, alongside Cant and Kastelijn. Both of them rode well in the Lotto Belgium Tour and the Baloise Ladies Tour to begin the summer. Only the National Belgian Champion Lotte Kopecky (whose versatile talents gave her a rainbow jersey on the track in 2017) managed to beat Kastelijn on the cobbles of Geraardsbergen, in the final stage of the Lotto Belgium Tour!
By their side, Aniek van Alphen (22 years old), Inge van der Heijden (21) and Julie de Wilde (18) will bring their young talents to the Plantur-Pura line-up in Norway. In June, De Wilde already finished on the podium of the individual time trial (ITT) at the Belgian National Championships, before finishing 2nd in the Under 23 ITT.
As they grow among the experts of road racing, these young guns also dream of the first edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes, in October, before the Tour de France Femmes appears next year. Will the skills developed in the cyclo-cross fields favour them in some of the most famed road events? The Ladies Tour of Norway, with its hilly terrains and a proper summit finish on day 3, will give a better view of Plantur-Pura’s horizons.