The Women's WorldTour was expected to host 25 races this season. However, the Giro Rosa was downgraded to 1.Pro, and, due to COVID-19, a number of events have faced postponement and cancellation.
Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race was the original kick-off to the top-tier series but was cancelled in January. Itzulia Women has been cancelled in May, but it has been replaced by the Clásica San Sebastián in September.
Organisers of Ronde van Drenthe and the Women's Tour have requested an October spot on the calendar.
Cyclingnews will be bringing you full reports, results, news, interviews, analysis and galleries throughout all of the events on the 2021 Women's WorldTour.
Wewill also be providing live text-based coverage for select one-day events on the Women's WorldTour, including the Spring Classics and La Course by Le Tour de France, followed by the elite women's time trial and road races at both the Tokyo Olympic Games and the UCI Road World Championships in Flanders, Belgium.
The most popular early-season one-day events on the Women's WorldTour
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The cancellation of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race means that the Women’s WorldTour will begin at Strade Bianche on March 6 in Italy. The race will once again take on the white gravel roads routed throughout the scenic Tuscany region. The organiser, RCS Sport, announced that it will keep to tradition for the 2021 editions, using the same 184km route for men and 136km for women as last year, when Wout van Aert and Annemiek van Vleuten triumphed in Siena.
The winner of this race will wear the first leader’s jersey of the series into the more traditional Spring Classics.
The series continues in Italy for the Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio on March 21. It was one of the first races forced to cancel last year as COVID-19 swept around the world last spring, and it was not added to the revised calendar last fall. The women's field traditionally race a hilly 130 kilometres that finishes on 17.8-kilometre circuits around the town of Cittiglio. Each lap includes a climb through Orino, but the wide-open roads to the finish line often cater to a reduced group sprint.
A controversial outcome last year saw Lorena Wiebes take the win after Jolien D’hoore crossed the line first but was relegated for deviating from her line in the sprint. It is now a longer race at some 160 kilometres and well-suited to the sprinters. Last year, the peloton travelled 156 kilometres, passing through Leeuw, Koekelare and Schoorbakke, and then contested two finishing circuits in De Panne.
It’s one of the flatter one-day races and typically sees a clash of the sprinters. Last year’s event took place in October and saw Jolien D’hoore out-sprint an 11-rider front group to take the win. The start of the race was moved from Ypres' Grote Markt to the Menin Gate and included several main climbs such as the Beneberg, Kemmelberg and Monteberg en route to the finish in Wevelgem.
The Tour of Flanders is the most prestigious of the Spring Classics. It was reduced from 159km to 135km during the revised calendar last year where Chantal van den Broek-Blaak took a solo victory. This year, it is expected to once again start in Oudenaarde and cover a combination of cobbled sectors and steep climbs including the more decisive climbs near the end of the race - Kruisberg/Hotond (2.6km at 4.1 per cent located at 106km) and the final two climbs over the Oude Kwaremont (2km at 4.2 per cent located at 118km) and lastly the Paterberg (400m at 9.7 per cent located 121km). From the crest of the Paterberg, the peloton will race another 13 kilometres to the finish line in Oudenaarde.
There was a significant change to the one-day races that are part of the Women’s WorldTour with the surprise addition of the first-ever women’s Paris-Roubaix. ASO and the UCI made history by creating this event and added it to the revised late-season calendar in October last year. However, it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ASO announced some of the details of the 116km route last year with a start in Denain, south of Roubaix, and a finish at the Roubaix Velodrome. There were 17 sectors of cobbled roads with the pavé beginning after just 20km of racing. Two sectors were rated at the maximum difficulty level: Mons-en-Pévèle and the Carrefour de l'Arbre.
Paris-Roubaix will close out the cobbled Classics, and so that has prompted some riders to draw a line and choose between racing in the cobbled Classics and the Ardennes Classics week.
This race was also cancelled last year in April, and again in October, due to COVID-19 but will resume this April as the kickoff to the Ardennes Classics. In 2019, the race started and finished in Maastricht, and included a hilly parcours that finished on three 17.8-kilometre circuits and featured the Geulhemmerberg, Bemelerberg and Cauberg climbs. From the top of the Cauberg, there were roughly 1.7km to the finish line, where Kasia Niewiadoma held off Annemiek van Vleuten for the victory in 2019. Organisers are reportedly creating a closed 18km circuit for the men's and women's 2021 edition.
La Flèche Wallonne is the oldest of the three one-day races that form the women's Ardennes Classics triple crown. The series has only been in place for women since 2017 when Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition made its return after a 14-year hiatus, followed by the long-running La Flèche Wallonne, and the debut of Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The one-day women's race is famed for its finale on the Mur de Huy. Anna van der Breggen has won a record six consecutive titles at La Flèche Wallonne, and all eyes will be on her for a seventh in 2021.
Liège-Bastogne-Liège concludes the Ardennes Classics week before riders turn their attention to the summer stage races. The race starts in Bastogne and includes climbs over Côte de Wanne, Côte de la Haute-Levée and Col du Rosier, before taking on the climbs in the later stages. The final climbs will include the new climb of the Côte de Desnié, and then Côte de La Redoute, Côte des Forges, and Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, before the finish in Liège.
The eighth edition of La Course by Le Tour de France will be 130 kilometres with five laps of a circuit, held on the same day as the Tour de France men's stage 2 in the Brittany department of north-western France. The women’s race will feature six trips up the Mûr-de-Bretagne, a 2km-long climb averaging 6.9 per cent gradient, but pitching up over 10 per cent in the first kilometre, and the race will finish at the top.
It's an Olympic year and the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, which were rescheduled to take place from July 23 through August 8, are the main focus for many riders, and they are staying optimistic that the event will happen.
Elite women's road race - Musashinonomori Park to Fuji International Speedway, July 25
The women will race 137km, with 2,692 metres of elevation gain over two climbs. The race will start in Musashino Mori Park on the outskirts of Tokyo and travel southwest towards the Fuji International Speedway, tackling the Donushi Road and Kagosaka Pass. The women's race will then head down from the Kagosaka Pass to do 1.5 laps of a rolling circuit finishing on the Fuji International Speedway.
Defending champion: Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands)
Elite women's individual time trial - Fuji International Speedway, July 28
Three days later, the elite women will compete along a 21.1km route for the individual time trial. The time trials will start and finish on the Fuji International Speedway motor racing circuit.
Elite women's individual time trial, September 20 - The elite women will compete along a 30.3km route that starts in Knokke-Heist and finishes in Bruges.
Defending champion: Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands)
Elite women's road race, September 25 - The elite women's 157.7km road race will start in Antwerp and finish in Leuven.
Defending champion: Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands)
This is highly regarded as one of the most popular and progressive races on the Women’s WorldTour. This year’s six-day race was originally set to begin in Bicester, Oxfordshire on June 7 and finish with a stage between Haverhill and Felixstowe in Suffolk on June 12, however, organisers have announced a postponement until October, which means this six-day event will close out the season.
Organiser SweetSpot brought parity to the event’s prize fund with the men's Tour of Britain, which was set at €97,880 across six days of racing in 2019. It recently announced a five-year plan to offer live coverage of the women’s race, which is required to be part of the top-tier series.
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