Watch Out for These 8 Women’s Riders in the 2022 Cycling Season
Racing is already underway for the road season, even though it may feel like some riders are still cleaning the mud off of their cyclocross bikes.
The excitement for this year will likely be a slow build, as well, given that it’s such a long season. The first race on the WorldTour calendar is the Strade Bianchi on March 5, and it won’t conclude until mid-October with the Tour of Guangxi.
Teams such as Movistar and Trek-Segafredo have been setting the tone for the season at the early races, such as Setmana Ciclista Valenciana last week. Then, there are the new teams added to the Women’s WorldTour, such as Human Powered Health (formerly Rally Cycling)—not only are they new to the WorldTour, but they are also relatively new to racing in Europe in general.
But with such a long season and with these new teams, which riders can we expect to see out front? Of course, the most exciting thing about the women’s pro cycling peloton recently is its depth of talent. Consider the Olympics, where the relatively unknown Anna Kiesenhofer won gold, shocking the cycling world (and half of the riders in the race). And as more teams ante up and create solid WorldTour programs for women, more riders have the support and backing to be able to show up full time on the bike.
Here, we’re sharing eight riders we expect to be podium regulars this season. But, of course, expect some surprises as well.
Annemiek van Vleuten — Movistar
With the overall win at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana already under her belt, van Vleuten is likely feeling solid about her upcoming season. Any other year, this wouldn’t be a surprise: she took the silver medal in the Olympic road race and the gold in the time trial, among dozens of other podiums throughout the year and the overall WorldTour win, but a crash in the fall left her on bedrest to recover from a broken pelvis. To return to racing so quickly—and so dominantly—is impressive, to say the least. And to do so at 39 years old, well, it’s just mind-boggling.
Elisa Balsamo — Trek-Segafredo
Cycling is a fun sport to watch in part because of the huge gaps in age between top contenders. While van Vleuten is approaching 40, Balsamo is just 23 years old. Movistar wasn’t the only team who showed up to win at the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana stage race: Reigning road world champion and new Trek-Segafredo rider Elisa Balsamo opened the race with a perfectly played sprint finish, taking the win. She also scored second on the final stage of the race.
Her stage race history isn’t as impressive as her one-day race results, but with teammates like Elisa Longo-Borghini (also a rider worth watching this season!) surrounding her, the young rider is setting herself up for success as she matures as a rider and better adapts to these longer events.
Mavi García — UAE Team ADQ
Formerly known as Alé BTC Ljubljana, UAE Team ADQ has brought on some big names for the 2022 season, including three-time Spanish national champion García. At 38 years old, she’s one of the more mature riders in the peloton, but as van Vleuten shows, age may be an advantage in road racing. García has finished second for the last two years at the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche and won the Giro dell'Emilia Internazionale Donne Elite in 2021. Like Balsamo and van Vleuten, she also raced Setmana Ciclista Valenciana last week, finishing ninth overall.
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig — FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope
The 26-year-old finished second to van Vleuten at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana, showing how her racing has matured and that she’ll now be a force to be reckoned with in stage races as well as one-day events. Last season, she was second in La Course, and finished top-10 in nearly every one-day race on the Women’s WorldTour calendar.
On FDJ, she’s backed by ultra-strong racers including Grace Brown, which should boost her ability to compete in these lower events even more.
Demi Vollering — SD Worx
Demi Vollering has the season of her life in 2021—victories at La Course, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and the Giro d’Italia Donne—and it’s not unreasonable to think that she’ll have an even better 2022 season. This is in part because the new team director for SD Worx this season is none other than recently-retired Anna van der Breggen, arguably one of the GOATs of women’s cycling. While having van der Bergen as a teammate likely helped Vollering get going in the WorldTour, it’s hard to have two ultra-strong racers on one team, since only one rider can win the race.
Vollering will now be top dog on SD Worx, which will give her the support and mental advantage in coming races. And having someone as knowledgeable as van der Breggen calling the shots on the team radio will be an added bonus. While other WorldTour teams (Trek-Segafredo and Jumbo-Visma to name two) have former racers directing them, none are as recently retired as van der Breggen, and that intimate knowledge of the peloton is sure to pay off.
Marianne Vos — Jumbo Visma
Speaking of the GOAT … would this even be a women’s cycling list without Vos on it? The current (and many time) cyclocross world champion has turned her attention back to road for the season. However, you could argue that she already had road tactics on her mind during CX worlds when she and Lucinda Brand did some trackstanding sprint psych outs in the final lap before Vos dominated the sprint.
She hasn’t announced her full road racing calendar yet for 2022, but we expect that she’ll be showing up for the major WorldTour races, including the return to a women’s version of the Tour de France with the Tour de France Femmes.
Lucinda Brand — Trek Segafredo
Like Vos, Brand may take a couple extra weeks before joining the women’s road peloton—and rightly so, after a second place finish at world championships, the World Cup overall win, and 20 cyclocross victories over 32 races in the season.
She likely won’t be at the front of the races as much during road season, since Trek Segafredo is loaded with top tier women vying for the top spot, but having her on the team adds a strong climber capable of winning mountain stages or overall Queen of the Mountain classifications. She also brings some cyclocross skills to the races, so for classics that include cobblestones (ahem, the second Paris-Roubaix Femmes), she has the advantage.
Ruby Roseman Gannon — Team BikeExchange - Jayco
The 23-year-old Australian is an up-and-comer in the women’s peloton and certainly one to watch this season. She didn’t race much in 2021 or 2020, but she finished in second on stage one of Setmana Ciclista Valenciana after dominating the criterium racing scene in Australia. (Unfortunately, she also had a slight incident with a barrier in the following stage, but was fortunately relatively unscathed!) This is her first year on the WorldTour circuit, and she’ll be relatively new to international racing thanks to the pandemic but it’s likely that she’ll catch on fast.
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