As the countdown to the 2024 season gathers pace, Cyclingnews looks at some of the key storylines that will define the coming year in cycling.
One of the biggest storylines to watch in the new season will be how the major women's teams shake up to dominance of the all-powerful SD Worx in 2024.
SD Worx had an outstanding season last year with a whopping 62 victories and many 1-2 performances that added an element of depth to the team that no other squad could rival.
In fact, the most frequent question directed at rival teams and riders during pre-race press conferences began to sound like a tune stuck on endless repeat: "How are you going to beat SD Worx?"
The team's biggest wins came from Demi Vollering, who ended up winning the overall title at the 2023 Tour de France Femmes. She also won Strade Bianche, Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège for an Ardennes Classics clean sweep, and then moved on to win overall titles at Vuelta a Burgos, Tour de France Femmes and Tour de Romandie.
And then there were Lotte Kopecky's wins at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Tour of Flanders, and Thüringen Ladies Tour. Her most remarkable stretch of the season came in July and August. At the Tour de France Femmes, she won the opening stage, wore the yellow jersey for six days, and closed out the eight-day race by winning the green points jersey and taking second overall behind Vollering.
The performance stunned the cycling world and absolutely verified her capacity as a cyclist across flats, hilly and mountainous terrain in time trials. She went on to show her absolute completeness as a rider when she won three world titles at the combined UCI World Championships in Glasgow.
The team's strength was not in just two riders alone; rather, their depth is what makes them almost unbeatable. Lorena Wiebes, Marlen Reusser, Blanka Vas, Mischa Bredewold, Niamh Fisher-Black, Christine Majerus, Marie Schreiber, and Lonneke Uneken all secured wins last year.
By the mid-summer stage racing season, even the likes of now-retired Annemiek van Vleuten, who raced her last season in the rainbow bands of world champion, chimed in on how rival team could race more effectively against SD Worx.
Ahead of the second edition of the Tour de France Femmes in July, members of the press asked Van Vleuten if she was worried about the dominance of SD Worx in 2024.
"In general, it worries me that next year [2024], it should not be the same again. It's not about SD Worx, and it's more about other teams that should look at themselves about their tactics and about the riders they have," she said.
"It's important that women's cycling remains interesting and if it's again what we had so far, that they win that much, maybe it won't be so interesting... The riders also choose to be together all in one team, it's working really well for SD Worx, so I cannot blame them, but other teams need to have a look to challenge them a bit more."
In 2024, we can anticipate that SD Worx will once again play to their own strengths, depth, and race cohesively and continue to their success across the Women's WorldTour. However, Van Vleuten believes that rival teams will now better prepare to prevent an all-out dominance.
"[In 2024] when I'm watching on the couch, I want to watch interesting races, it's also not interesting for me if only one team is winning. But you see a lot of movements when they win a lot, and teams start to think about how they want to prevent that the next year."
But even with the dominance of SD Worx, many would describe women's racing as thrilling, nail-biting, and an all-out spectacle of sport. While the team may have won a lot, they did not win all of the races on the calendar in 2023.
Fans were treated to standout moments as Grace Brown won at the Tour Down Under, Loes Adegeest won at the Cadel Evans Road Race, Elisa Longo Borghini won the UAE Tour, Pfeiffer Georgi won at Classic Brugge-De Panne, Shirin van Anrooij won at Trofeo Alfredo-Binda, Alison Jackson won Paris-Roubaix, Van Vleuten won overall wins at the Vuelta Femenina and Giro d'Italia Donne, Charlotte Kool won at RideLondon, Chiara Consonni won at Tour of Chongming Island and Daria Pikulik closed out the season with a win at Tour of Guangxi.
We can also expect to see more of the next generation of riders coming through the ranks, racing aggressively and standing on the top step of the podium. The likes of Ricarda Bauernfeind and Yara Kastelijn, who won stages at the Tour de France Femmes, and Antonia Niedermaier, who won a stage at the Giro d'Italia Women and who all race for rival teams, will undoubtedly be prepared to shake up the status quo in 2024.
Van Vleuten's best advice on how rival teams could disrupt the dominance of SD Worx came after stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes into Montignac-Lascaux, where she praised the team for their ability to 'play poker' and suggested other teams could learn from that tactic.
"In the end, it always surprises me that some teams are going to help SD Worx for the victory. It's happening during the races, but it makes you think, 'play the game, but also play the poker,' she said.
"SD Worx are good at poker, and I have to shout out to them because they are good at the poker game. It may be time for the other teams to play the poker, too. It would be more smart."
