Summer is knocking at the door in Europe and the UCI Women's WorldTour peloton is preparing for the big stage races coming up in the next weeks as well as the National Championships. With the Women's Tour in England just ten days away, former champion Marianne Vos (WM3 Pro Cycling Team) is back on a winning streak. The 30-year-old dutchwoman celebrated three victories in her three preparation races in May in Belgium and the Netherlands - closing the month beating Ellen van Dijk (Team Sunweb) and Maria Giulia Confalonieri (Lensworld-Kuota) at Gooik-Geraardsbergen-Gooik. And just like Vos, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla Pro Cycling Team) also showed how good her transition from the spring classics towards the summer period is going: After winning Emakumeen XXX. Bira the week before, she now also took the victories at both La Classique Morbihan and the Grand Prix de Plumelec-Morbihan in Brittany this weekend. Alena Amialiusik (Canyon-SRAM Racing) was second on both days with Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Cervelo-Bigla Pro Cycling Team) taking third place in La Classique and Shara Gillow (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) rounding out the podium at the Grand Prix.
Wednesday, June 7 - Sunday, June 11: Women's Tour
Standing next to dutch cycling stars Marianne Vos and Ellen van Dijk, Maria Giulia Confalonieri's face was by far the most unknown on the podium at Gooik-Geraardsbergen-Gooik on Sunday. The 24-year-old Italian, who lives in Seregno a little north of Milan, already had a great time on track as a junior, winning the UCI Junior Track Cycling World Championships' Points Race in 2011 and later taking seven medals at the UEC European U23 Track Cycling Championships in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The older she gets, the more is she developing into a great road racer now as well. Confalonieri has a strong sprint, which helped her to become 2nd at stage 4 of last year's Giro d'Italia in Lovere and to reach several other strong results. But this year she made the next step and stayed with the best in harder races as well - becoming 11th at the Ronde Van Vlaanderen and now bagging three podium finishes in her only three races in May, all behind nobody less impressive than Marianne Vos. Watch out for Confalonieri in the next weeks and especially at her favorite stage race, the Giro d'Italia Internazionale Femminile in July.