Following five straight weekends of UCI Women’s WorldTour races, the inaugural series took a small hiatus. The women’s peloton did not enjoy the same respite. Instead teams pinned on numbers for the first UCI-ranked European stage race of the season. The Energiewacht Tour included six stages over five days in Northern Holland and featured both a team time trial and an individual time trial.
Boels-Dolmans Cycling Team has emerged as the dominant team of the spring, and the trend continued at the Energiewacht Tour where the Dutch-registered squad smashed the 11.3-kilometre opening team time trial by 20-seconds over UCI Team Time Trial World Champions Canyon SRAM Racing (formerly Velocio-SRAM). Ellen van Dijk, who won the 2013 Energiewacht Tour, had the honour of wearing the first yellow jersey of race leader.
Van Dijk’s teammate, and double UCI Women’s WorldTour winner Chantal Blaak, won stage two of the Energiewacht Tour, a windswept 116.8-kilometre road stage. With the stage win, Blaak assumed the race lead from Van Djik. The early breakaway stayed away on stage three, a 131.8-kilometre road race, and Team USA’s Allie Dragoo took the win. Because none of the breakaway riders were a threat to the overall, Blaak stayed in yellow with three stages down, three stages still to come.
Saturday was a double day of racing at the Energiwacht Tour with a morning road race and an afternoon individual time trial. The road stage was aggressive and animated from start to finish. Kirsten Wild (Hitec Products) emerged victorious in the reduced bunch sprint. Blaak sprinted in for second place, adding bonus seconds to her overall lead ahead of the time trial.
The yellow jersey exchanged hands following Saturday’s second stage. Van Dijk, the 2013 2013 UCI Time Trial World Champion, crushed the competition in the race against the clock, setting a time 22-seconds faster than prologue specialist Annemiek van Vleuten (ORICA-AIS) in second place. Van Dijk assumed the race lead from Blaak and headed into the final stage with a 37-second gap over Van Vleuten.
The 117.9-kilometre final stage was hard fought with Lisa Brennauer (Canyon SRAM Racing) proving particularly aggressive. In the end, Van Dijk finished safely in the bunch on stage five to win the overall as Wild took her second stage victory.
La Flèche Wallonne Féminine > Wednesday April 20th
Last year’s results – 2015 Flèche Wallonne Féminine
1. Anna van der Breggen (NED) 2. Annemiek van Vleuten (NED) 3. Megan Guarnier (USA)
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Jerseys awarded during stage races
While two jerseys are awarded at the UCI Women’s WorldTour one-day races, the leader’s jersey and the youth jersey, jerseys are not typically associated with one-day races. Special jerseys are typically the domain of stage races.
At Energiewacht Tour, we saw five distinct jerseys awarded daily: a yellow jersey, a green jersey, an orange jersey, a white jersey and a blue jersey. The yellow jersey was the race leader’s jersey and was awarded to the rider with the lowest cumulative time over stages already raced. The white jersey is similar but is awarded to the best young rider. At Energiewacht Tour, the cut-off for “young rider” was 23. This cut off age can vary from race-to-race and is determined by a rider’s “race age” or her age at the end of the season.
The points classification winner earned the Energiwacht Tour green jersey awarded to the rider with the most points based on finishing place on all stages. While it seems like this would overlap with the yellow jersey this isn’t always or even often the case. The points jersey might award a sprinter who finished first, third and fourth on three sprint stages but lost a lot of time in the individual time trial and the mountain stage. While the overall leader is scored solely on time, the points classification leader is solely based on finishing place.
The Energiewacht Tour orange jersey was awarded to the sprint classification winner. At the Dutch stage race, the full-length road stages had intermediate sprints, two on stage two and three on stages three and five. The top three at these intermediate sprints points were award points – three for first, two for second and one for third. The rider with the most points earned the green jersey.
The blue jersey at the Energiewacht Tour served as the only discretionary award and was the only jersey that was not awarded for cumulative work. Every day, the race organisers together with the race commissaries selected the rider they believed best embodied ‘fighting spirit’, and she was awarded the blue jersey.
The classification outlined above are fairly standard from stage race to stage race. Additional classifications might include Queen of the Mountain, for the best climber, and best rider from a particular country (so for example, at the Aviva Women’s Tour in the UK, there is a jersey for the best British rider).
There is not standard colour for these jerseys although many races tend to borrow from the Tour de France, which uses the yellow jersey for the overall, a green jersey for points, a red polka-dot jersey for King of the Mountain and a white jersey for youth leader. The most famous jersey in women’s cycling is arguably the pink leader’s jersey, or maglia rosa, worn by the race leader/winner of the only remaining women’s Grand Tour, the Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile.
Race organisers award jerseys on the podium daily during stage races, so riders may wear a jersey as the leader of a classification during the race but not ultimately win the jersey come race end.
Floortje Mackaij
Twenty-year-old Floortje Mackaij (Liv Plantur) won the 2016 Energiewacht Tour youth classification and has been one of two-wearers of the UCI Women’s WorldTour colourful blue young rider’s jersey. The Dutchwoman has been locked in a fierce battle with Kasia Niewiadoma (Rabo Liv Women Cycling Team) for the top spot in the youth classification. The two riders have swapped the jersey back and forth following each round of racing. Niewiadoma currently leads Mackaij by six points (18 to 12) following Ronde van Vlaanderen.
Mackaij turned professional in 2014 with Liv Plantur (then Giant-Shimano), and over the winter, the team announced they had signed her to a four-year deal, previously unheard of in women’s cycling,
The young Dutchwoman fancies herself a puncheur and excels in the toughest of conditions. Her biggest sporting achievement to date was a win at Gent-Wevelgem in 2015 on a day that fierce wind and rain blew riders off the road and into ditches.
Born in Woerden, The Netherlands, Mackaij regularly trains with compatriot Ellen van Dijk (Boels-Dolmans Cycling Team). Mackaij calls her training partner’s time trial victory at the 2013 UCI Road World Championships her most inspiring cycling moment. It’s no surprise then to learn that Mackaij’s biggest career goal is earning a rainbow jersey of her own.
Like any good cyclist, Mackaij rates sleeping and eating high on her list of ways to spend spare time. She loves to shop and consider Paris her favourite city. She loved racing the 2015 La Course by Le Tour de France in the rain last year, mentioning both the tough conditions and the crowds as factors that made the second edition of the one-day women’s race so memorable.
Key results
1st – Gent Wevelgem (2015) 1st – Festival Luxembourgeois du cyclisme féminin Elsy Jacobs – stage three (2015) 1st – Lotto Belgium Tour – stage three (2015) 2nd – BeNe Ladies Tour (2015) 4th – Le Samyn des Dames (2016)
Mackaij won the youth classification at the 2016 Eneriewacht Tour, 2015 Elsy Jacobs, and 2015 BeNe Ladies Tour.
On the 11th of April we are 115 days from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
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