5 conclusions from Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite Women 2022

The Spring Classics season began at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday where Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team) took a thrilling victory from a two-up sprint against compatriot Demi Vollering (SD Worx) on the streets of Ninove.

The spring season looked to have some semblance of pre-covid normal with fans out lining the roads to watch the one-day race, eager to catch glimpses of the peloton along the five cobbled sectors and the nine ascents

Many were out to catch the action along the back-to-back and decisive ascents of the Muur-Kapelmuur and Bosberg, and to cheer for their favourite riders at the finish line in Ninove.

"Everyone is really happy about the fact that the fans can come to the race again. We have something more normal compared to the passed two seasons," Flanders Classics CEO Tom Van Den Spiegel told Cyclingnews, while noting that the event takes precautions in team and press zones to make sure not to jeopardise participation of the riders.

The first official one-day race of the Spring Classics is complete and Cyclingnews looks back at some of the biggest takeaways from the 2022 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite Women.

Annemiek van Vleuten is back

Annemiek van Vleuten’s 2021 season ended abruptly when she crashed on Carrefour de l’Arbre in the inaugural Paris-Roubaix Femmes in early October, fracturing her pelvis and shoulder and derailing her off-season plans. However, Van Vleuten is no stranger to setbacks, having suffered many injuries throughout her career, and she has learned the hard way how best to recover from them.

She had to use crutches until mid-December, but just two days after the crash, she was on a home trainer, and eight days later, she was back on her city bike. Just a few weeks after the crash, Van Vleuten had moved to her race bike (albeit using a wider, softer saddle), training throughout the winter in Colombia and on Tenerife.

Her 2022 season started with the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana, and there seemed to be no aftereffects of her crash just four months prior. The 39-year-old reached the stage 3 mountaintop finish solo, setting up the overall win, her second consecutive victory in the Spanish stage race.

In the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Van Vleuten’s team kept the front group of four in check, and she herself delivered an almost-predictable acceleration up the Muur van Geraardsbergen that broke apart the peloton. Closing the gap to the front ahead of the Bosberg, she then made another seated attack up the Bosberg that only Demi Vollering could follow. 

Van Vleuten had to take the lead on the final 13km as Vollering would not contribute to the pace, but Van Vleuten still extended the gap to over a minute and then still had enough left to beat Vollering with a very long sprint. The top-ranked rider of 2021 certainly looks to be the woman to beat in 2022, too.

Dutch reign supreme in Ninove

Dutch riders dominated the Spring Classics last season as Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx) won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and an astonishing seventh consecutive Flèche Wallonne, Chantal van den Broek Blaak (SD Worx) won Strade Bianche, Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) won Tour of Flanders, Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) won Gent-Wevelgem and Amstel Gold Race, Demi Vollering (SD Worx) won Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) won Ronde van Drenthe (held in October). 

Any questions regarding the nation's continued dominance of the spring one-day races were answered at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad with an all-Dutch podium. 

Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) put the pressure on the back-to-back Muur van Geraardsbergen and Bosberg, and only her compatriot Demi Vollering (SD Worx) could follow such strong attacks. 

The pair sprinted for the victory with Van Vleuten prevailing, leaving Vollering to settle for second. Twenty-five seconds later their compatriot Lorena Wiebes stormed across the line, taking the bunch sprint for third place.

There will be ample competition to challenge the Dutch reign on the one-day races this spring. There is a range of talent from other nations spread a bit more evenly across 14 Women's WorldTeams, but the Dutch riders are certainly off to a winning start.

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad worthy of the Women's WorldTour

It's always somewhat of a surprise that Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite Women is not part of the Women's WorldTour. A staple of the Spring Classics since 2006, the women's event annually brings in the best teams and their top riders.

Flanders Classics are steadily building their women's events to match the men's races with live TV, route similarities and category upgrades. Plus despite the controversy of unequal prize money in 2021, its Closing the Gap initiative promises equal prize money across all six events in 2023 – which has already begun for the Tour of Flanders this year.  

Flanders Classics CEO Tomas Van Den Spiegel confirmed to Cyclingnews that the UCI denied Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite Women a spot on the Women’s WorldTour calendar in 2022. Van Den Spiegel said he understood the UCI's decision to deny the race a spot on the top-tier calendar as it continues to shape the structure of women's cycling. 

The organisation believes that Omloop Het Nieuwsblad belongs on the WorldTour, alongside its men's event, and it intends to submit new applications for both Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Dwars door Vlaanderen to join the top tier series in 2023.

Next generation

In the end, Van Vleuten stood on the top step of the podium, but several of the riders putting their mark on the race are part of a younger generation that steadily improves and is ready to take centre stage in the biggest races as the 2022 season progresses.

The winner of the 2021 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad was at the start line in Gent but Anna van der Breggen retired from racing and was now part of the race convoy as sports director for Team SD Worx. The first big attack came from her rider Marlen Reusser who made her move on the Leberg. The Olympic ITT silver medallist moved to the Dutch team ahead of the season and is establishing herself as a classics rider to be reckoned with, making good use of her time trial pedigree.

Reusser was joined by 35-year-old Ellen van Dijk, but also by 24-year-old Liane Lippert and 23-year-old Anna Henderson. Henderson turned heads in 2021 when she worked relentlessly as a super-domestique for Marianne Vos and raced aggressively in the road race at the World Championships. She will continue her upward trajectory and be even more valuable in support of Vos this year as well as gunning for a big result herself. In the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Henderson could not keep up with Reusser, Van Dijk, and Lippert on the Muur van Geraardsbergen but recovered and sprinted to seventh place in the end.

Lippert took her first Women’s WorldTour victory in early 2020 when she won the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race but has since gone without any UCI victory, in part because Team DSM often race for sprinter Lorena Wiebes. Lippert is a strong allrounder who can challenge in both classics and stage races and will be looking for that elusive win. 

22-year-old Wiebes raced cleverly and was part of the peloton that sprinted for third place. She has established herself as the strongest sprinter in the women’s peloton but is facing fierce competition from 23-year-old world champion Elisa Balsamo, 23-year-old Clara Copponi, and 22-year-old Emma Norsgaard Bjerg who finished behind the Dutchwoman in Ninove.

Sprinters show early-season strength

The two-up sprint for the victory was thrilling, however, the sprint for third was equally as impressive. A clash between Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) and World Champion Elisa Balsamo (Trek-Segafredo) in the bunch sprint was one of the telling aspects of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. It gave cycling fans an indication of what to anticipate from the sprinters going forward into the season.

We already saw early-season form from Marta Bastianelli when she took a sprint win at Vuelta CV Feminas and the final stage of Setmana Ciclista Valenciana (she also won Omloop van het Hageland on Sunday). Balsamo also showed her top form when she won the opening stage of the four-day stage race in Spain. These two European openers in Spain were positioned directly after team training camps and played a role in allowing riders an opportunity to get to know their new teammates, practice lead-outs and strategies in a race setting, while also fine-tuning form ahead of the Spring Classics.

At Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Wiebes and Balsamo were the fastest of the sprinters left in the field but there were other riders in the mix that showed promising from at the start of the season. 

FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope's Clara Copponi finished fifth, Emma Norsgaard Bjerg (Movistar) sixth, Anna Henderson (Jumbo-Visma), managed a respectable seventh among the sprinters, and Maria Giullia Confalonieri (Ceratizit-WNT) in eighth finished just ahead of Bastianelli in ninth, while Julie Leth round out the top ten for the newly launched team Uno X.

The battle of the sprinters will be an exciting one to watch during the Spring Classics.