Strade Bianche 2024 – Analysing the contenders
From Lotte Kopecky to Tadej Pogacar, we run the rule over the favourites for the race over the white gravel roads of Tuscany
This year's Strade Bianche races include an extra 30km loop and so more climbs and more Tuscan gravel roads than ever before. It could change the dynamics of the racing and will definitely make them harder. The women's race is 137km long and includes 12 gravel sectors for a total of 39.8km on the ‘white roads’ that twist and turn through the Chianti vineyards,
The men’s race traditionally covered 184km but the extra loop near Siena over the Colle Pinzuto and Le Tolfe gravel roads extends the distance to 215 km. The men face 15 sectors instead of the previous 11 on Saturday afternoon, with a total of 71.5km on the farm tracks.
Strade Bianche has always suited riders on form, who have the power for the many short climbs and the bike skills for fast racing on the gravel road.
These are the men and women Cyclingnews believe will be the contenders this year. recent Omloop Het Nieuwsblad victor Marianne Vos and gravel world champion Kasia Niewiadoma will surely challenge the might of SD Worx riders Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky, who went one-two last year.
Tadej Pogačar is making his 2024 season debut but the 2022 winner is surely the man to beat, with reigning champion Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) and Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) dangerous rivals if the Slovenian makes a mistake. The list of outsiders is long and includes Lotto-Dstny talent Lennert Van Eetvelt, who recently won the UAE Tour, and many others.
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Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)
The 2024 Tour de France contenders are starting their seasons one by one, each taking a different approach to their bigger July targets.
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Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) started his season at Figueira Champions Classic and Volta as Algarve, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike) at O Gran Camiño, and now it's Tadej Pogačar's turn to make his season debut at Strade Bianche.
Pogačar has made no secret of his ambition to win his first race of the season along the white gravel roads of the popular Italian one-day race that finishes on the steep slopes of the Via Santa Caterina and into Piazza del Campo.
No one will forget Pogačar's 50km solo victory during the 2022 edition, but many believe that the new extended route will change the way the race plays out this year.
Organisers added a new loop near Siena over the Colle Pinzuto and Le Tolfe gravel roads, extending the distance to 215km and delivering a much more challenging race than in previous editions.
Of course, this could very well play heavily in the favour of a rider like Pogačar. He admitted that while he is having a slower start to the season, he will arrive in the best possible early-season shape. The former two-time Tour de France winner is targeting fewer Classics this year as he aims for the Giro-Tour double, which means that every single one-day start will count.
Demi Vollering & Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime)
It was an intriguing women’s Strade Bianche last year, with even a horse on the course to add to the drama laden race, which ended with a sprint between SD Worx teammates Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky, rather than the show of harmony often on display in such circumstances.
The outcome was that Vollering took first and Kopecky second and suspicions of internal rivalry began.
This year the circumstances are a little different. There is no doubt that SD Worx-Protime is the most powerful squad on the start line but Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Omloop van het Hageland showed that they are beatable, with the team finishing second at both races as Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) and Kirsten Faulkner (EF Education-Cannondale) claimed the top spots.
Kopecky, for one made it clear she wasn’t happy to settle for second after Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. She is obviously on form given her UAE Tour win and so is a huge favourite for Saturday's Strade Bianche.
Defending champion Vollering may have just re-entered the fray for 2024 but will surely soon resumes her winning ways. Last year the celebrations started with Strade Bianche as the first of her 17 victories after she also started the 2023 season with on Opening Weekend.
She finished 17th at the 2023 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on her season debut, so her sixth place last Saturday could be a good indicator of strong early form for the Tour de France Femmes winner.
Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers)
Tom Pidcock will race Strade Bianche wearing bib No. 1 after his victory in the 2023 edition. The Ineos Grenadiers rider took an exceptional solo win after a series of attacks from 45km out.
Like Evenepoel, Pidcock began his season at the Volta ao Algarve, where he finished sixth, before travelling to Belgium for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad last weekend, where he was eighth but in the thick of the action.
He admitted that he 'ran out of legs' in the final at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad but said that the race reminded him never to give up in the one-day Classics, which can sometimes end with an unexpected winner.
At the finish in Ninove, Pidcock also said the one-day race was a pleasant welcome back to the cobbles, and he noted his goals of competing in the Italian block that begins at Strade Bianche before moving on to Tirreno-Adriatico and then Milan-San Remo.
The reigning mountain bike Olympic and World Champion, and former cyclocross World Champion is always one to watch in an off-road setting like Strade Bianche, and a second-consecutive victory would be a confidence booster heading into his other targets later this spring.
Elisa Longo Borghini & Shirin van Anrooij (Lidl-Trek)
It was a story of a two-pronged attack for Lidl-Trek last week at in the women's race at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and the team will likely once again be looking to Elisa Longo Borghini and Shirin van Anrooij to deliver an aggressive performance at Strade Bianche.
Plus while last week it was the finishing speed of their two key rivals in the leading group of four that undid the duo's advantage, their attacking prowess on the climbs is arguably far more likely to tip the result in their favour in Italy.
The Italian national champion certainly has a powerful record at the race, winning in 2017 and also taking to the podium on three other occasions.
Anrooij managed to slot straight into the top ten immediately on her debut in 2022, with the 22 year old's ability to handle the gravel sections never in doubt given her cyclocross prowess.
Throw in the strength of an experience packed team for support, including 2016 winner Lizzie Deignan, and the determination which was evident with the duo's continued attacking style in Belgium and the pair seem set to deliver a fiesty challenge to play their part in attempting to unravel the dominance of SD Worx-Protime once again.
Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny)
Lennert Van Eetvelt took the biggest victory of his young career winning the final stage atop Jebel Hafeet to secure the overall title at the UAE Tour, making him a name to remember and a contender for Strade Bianche.
The 22-year-old has just begun his career with Lotto Dstny after spending three seasons with the under-23 programme and he is hoping to take another step up on the podium this spring.
He had already won Trofeo Serra Tramuntana as part of the Mallorca Challenge, and his victory on the WorldTour in the UAE has no doubt added another layer of confidence as he lines up against other race favourites and rivals like Pogačar and Pidcock in Siena.
His obvious strengths are on the steep climbs and challenging hilly terrain, as he successfully showed on the Coll de Puig Major in Mallorca and on Jebel Hafeet. Those strengths will be put to the test again, and it will be interesting to see how he handles the 215km distance across the steep pitches in Tuscany and the added gravel variable.
Van Eetvelt has set his sights on a podium performance, reaching higher than his previous ambition of completing among the top 10. Although he would like to branch out little by little from the one-day races to the shorter stage races and then the Grand Tours, there is no doubt that his future is bright, especially when the road goes up.
Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease A Bike)
Marianne Vos' ability should never be underestimated, it is one of the reasons she is considered the 'Greatest of All Time' in the women's peloton.
Last season threw some challenges her way and hindered her performance, with a constriction of an artery leaving her with pain and a lack of power in her left leg and the need for later summer surgery. Some thought it could be the end of her incredible career.
However at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad we once again got to see Vos firing on all cylinders and as a result throwing her hands up in victory.
Her incredible bike handling, tactical nous and way she just seems to float to the right place in the peloton while other around her scramble ae massive assets at any race. They are invaluable on the gravel sectors of Strade Bianche, and now the power is back, Vos is as formidable as ever.
Having said that, Vos has never finished on the podium at Strade Bianche but she has been remarkably consistent in the top ten, finishing either seventh or sixth in the last four editions she lined up at.
The steep section near the finale are definitely a factor that plays to the strengths of
rivals like Vollering, Longo Borghini and Kopecky, as do the extra trips over the Colle Pinzuto and Le Tolfe climbs this year, but the way Vos locked herself on an Kopecky's wheel on both the Muur van Geraardsbergen and Bosberg last weekend, showed she has some early season climbing form.
Vos has been building for Strade Bianche in a way she never has before. The Dutch rider usually takes a break after the cyclocross season which means Strade Bianche is most often her opening road race.
This year though her artery surgery changed her schedule, with Vos skipping cyclocross in favour of concentrating on building her road base. She has already tested her legs at Setmana Valenciana – taking the runner spot on two stages – and gathered steam and that winning confidence on Opening Weekend.
Is victory in the Piazza del Campo too much to ask? Perhaps, but Vos can never be ignored.
Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease A Bike)
Sepp Kuss will be an outsider but also one of the favourites on the start line at Strade Bianche. He will be aiming to continue Visma-Lease A Bike's winning streak, after a dominating opening weekend saw Jan Tratnik win Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Wout Van Aert win Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, while Jonas Vingegaard dominated O Gran Camiño.
The US rider has had a strong start to the year with a sixth place at Clásic Jaén and eighth overall at Volta ao Algarve, and notably finishing third on the slopes of the Alto da Fóia.
Plus the 2023 Vuelta a España winner is likely to enjoy the new addition to the course with the extra 50km hilly circuit favouring those riders who can handle the relentless climbing that is so well known in and around Siena. Kuss can climb and his mountain bike skills mean she should be good on the gravel roads.
Visma-Lease A Bike also line-up with Christophe Laporte, another outside favourite, but the tougher course could prove to be too much of a challenge. Many have predicted the best climbers will emerge as they have in previous years but that the race will truly open up on the extended loop in the final.
We can certainly expect Kuss to be among the late-race contenders and vying for the victory on the final uphill grave sectors and the steep climb up Via Santa Caterina.
Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM)
Gravel and Italy are bound to bring back some good memories for Kasia Niewiadoma, it was after all a combination that saw the Canyon-SRAM rider pull on a rainbow jersey at the end of last season when she claimed the second edition of the UCI Gravel World Championships.
The Polish rider seems to be close to the front of the pack at Strade Bianche, with just one DNF on her results list amid eight top ten finishes and half of those were in the top three. However, Niewiadoma is yet to hit the top step, and hasn't stepped onto the podium since 2019.
Though there are two factors that bode well for her chances this year, the first of which is the even more demanding new route.
"The part we’re doing now twice is usually the hardest part of the race, where everything is exploding," said Niewiadoma.
"At that point, you’re going from sector to sector, ‘on your lashes,’ as we say in Polish. Knowing that you have to do it twice now will bring some calmness in the first part of the race, or the peloton will arrive in ones and twos. It makes the race more unpredictable."
The second factor is that not only did Niewiadoma have a powerful season finish in 2023, but also has clearly entered 2024 in strong form. She was second overall at Setmana Valenciana and seventh at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, results that put her well ahead of where she usually is before Strade Bianche so perhaps the step up will carry to Italy.
Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost)
EF Education-Easypost line up with several cards to play at this Strade Bianche including local rider Alberto Bettiol, who was fourth overall in the 2020 edition.
Bettiol is from the Tuscan countryside between Florence and Siena and did an early preview ride for his teammates, admitting that the new longer and hillier route is also suited to Richard Carapaz and Nielson Powless and tipping Ben Healy as a potential winner.
Healy has been had strong results on challenging one-day and stage races in 2023. Among the one-day races, he notably finished second at the Amstel Gold Race, De Brabantse Pijl, fourth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and won the GP Industria & Artigianato.
Healy came into this season with fourth overall at both Etoile de Bessèges and Volta ao Algarve, which bode well for his ambitions at Strade Bianche and also later in the spring at the Ardennes Classics.
Mavi Garcia (Liv-AlUla-Jayco)
This year is one that Mavi Garcia hoped would deliver a bounce back from 2023 as she steps into new team Liv-AlUla-Jayco, and so far the signs are promising.
The Spanish rider has already taken to the podium at Trofeo Palma Femina, as well as on stage three and on the GC at the UAE Tour.
Strade Bianche, a race where she came second in 2020, now offers up another chance to test out her new team dynamic as she lines up for the first time with two new climbers to the group, Ella Wyllie and Caroline Andersson.
With no single designated leader of the squad there should be ample opportunity for the rider to take a risk and make a big move. That is after all how she came so close to winning in 2020, when she escaped solo at 45km to go but was caught by Annemiek van Vleuten and then dropped on the Via Santa Caterina.
That 2020 victory from Van Vleuten was in fact the last time the Australian team took a win in the women's race at Strade Bianche but they'll be hoping the rider that was their biggest rival back then, can now add another to that tally.
Honourable mentions
Men
- Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep)
- Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease A Bike)
- Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek)
- Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe)
- Romain Bardet (DSM-Firmenich PostNL)
- Stevie Williams (Israel Premier-Tech)
- Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ)
Women
- Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck)
- Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal)
- Silvia Persico (UAE Team ADQ)
- Pfeiffer Georgi (DSM-Firmenich PostNL)
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Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
