UCI Women's WorldTour: Pikulik wraps up a season dominated by Vollering and Team SD Worx

After Daria Pikulik’s sprint victory in the Tour of Guangxi, Demi Vollering and Team SD Worx won the individual and team rankings for the UCI Women’s WorldTour 2023.

From Australia to China, the 2023 UCI Women’s WorldTour has traveled around the world and crowned champions from many different countries. Ten months after Grace Brown (AUS) and Los Adegeest (NED) brought the FDJ-Suez team early season victories in the Santos Tour Down Under and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race – Elite Women’s Race, Italian Chiara Consonni (UAE Team ADQ) and Polish Daria Pikulik (Human Powered Health) used their speed and stamina to win the last two races of the year, the Tour of Chongming Island (October 12-14) and the Tour of Guangxi (October 17).

They join a star-studded list of champions to have won at the 2023 UCI Women’s WorldTour, comprised of 27 events and dominated by Demi Vollering (NED) and her companions in Team SD Worx. With Vollering, Lotte Kopecky (BEL) and Marlen Reusser (SUI) claiming the first, second and fourth place in the individual ranking (Lorena Wiebes in 6th), the Dutch team dominated the team ranking ahead of Canyon//SRAM Racing and Lidl-Trek.

Team SD Worx reigns at the top of road cycling for the third year in a row. In 2020, Trek-Segafredo (now Lidl-Trek) won the team classification, after Boels-Dolmans (Team SD Worx’s former name) won from 2016 to 2019.

Individually, Demi Vollering succeeds Annemiek van Vleuten (winner in 2021 and 2022) with a comfortable lead: 4,891.86 points against 2,790,57 for Kopecky. Vollering is the first rider from her team to win the individual ranking of the UCI Women’s WorldTour since Anna van der Breggen (NED) in 2017. Her compatriot Shirin van Anrooij (Lidl-Trek) dominated the youth ranking for the second year in a row ahead of Gaia Realini (ITA) and Maike van der Duin (NED).

Vollering: from Tuscany to Tourmalet

The link between Van der Breggen and Vollering was particularly apparent during the spring. After she won the Strade Bianche (Italy) and accompanied Lotte Kopecky to victory in the Ronde van Vlaanderen – Tour of Flanders, the Dutch star took on the hilly classics, where her predecessor and now Sports Director achieved legendary conquests.

Powerful in the Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition, irresistible on the walls of La Flèche Wallonne Féminine and masterful in Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes: Vollering repeated the extraordinary triple achieved by Van der Breggen in 2017. Then it was time for the stage races.

The new Vuelta España Femenina brought an all-out battle between the dominant Vollering and established champion Van Vleuten, defending her colourful jerseys (rainbow, yellow, red and pink) in her last season as professional rider. Over seven days in Spain, Vollering took two stages but her older rival grabbed the overall win.

The main showdown between the two was expected at the second edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (in the meantime, Van Vleuten won the Giro d’Italia Donne and Vollering the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas). The defending champion gave it her all with a series of attacks but Vollering flew to glory as she conquered the iconic Col du Tourmalet.

Breaking Team SD Worx's dominance

Vollering’s performance in the Tour de France Femmes avec Swift was impressive in itself. But the French stage race was also the most striking illustration of the collective dominance achieved by Team SD Worx this season.

As she powered to the yellow jersey on stage 7, on the eve of the final time trial in Pau, Vollering took the overall lead from her teammate Kopecky, winner of the first stage ahead of another Team SD Worx rider, Lorena Wiebes, who outsprinted the field on stage 3 after a spectacular lead-out from Kopecky.

On day 8, it was Marlen Reusser’s turn to win a stage, ahead of Vollering and Kopecky, who won the points jersey and climbed to second place in the overall standings, just ahead of Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon//SRAM Racing). The Polish rider, crowned UCI Gravel World Champion in Veneto, Italy, had no road victories this season, but she impressed with her consistency (top 5 in the Ronde van Vlaanderen – Tour of Flanders, the Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition, the Itzulia Women, the Tour de Suisse Women and the Tour de Romandie Féminin) to finish fourth in the individual ranking.

Among the rare opportunities to overthrow Team SD Worx this season, Alison Jackson (EF Education-Tibco-SVB) took the most spectacular one in Paris-Roubaix, narrowly edging out a break-away group of favourites led by Kopecky. The Canadian celebrated her triumph, one of 12 UCI Women’s WorldTour victories not won by a Team SD Worx rider this year.