Charlotte Becker and her Hitec Products teammates make their way from sign in at the 108 km Stage 2 of the Lotto Belgium Tour 2016(Image credit: Sean Robinson/Velofocus)
The 2016 Rabo-Liv team(Image credit: Bert Geerts/dcp-bertgeerts@xs4all.nl)
Lotte Kopecky put in a dominant performance over the weekend claiming victory in each round to win the women’s competition at the Gent Six Day. The 21-year-old had a winning margin of 39 points over second place Anita Stenberg. Stenberg was equal on points with Amy Cure but took the runner-up spot due to her finishing position the points race.
The women’s competition used the new omnium format, which was announced last month, and was contested over four events on Saturday evening in the 't Kuipke velodrome. Kopecky came out of the traps quickly, beating Alzbeta Pavlendova to take full points in the scratch race. She carried on her winning ways with victory in the new tempo race, the elimination race and the finale of the points race. Stenberg took second in the points race to dray level with Cure on 138 points, and move into second overall.
Kopecky recently won bronze in the omnium at the European championships and took the first ever women’s omnium competition with her partner Jolien D’hoore. D’hoore was not racing on Saturday but was in attendance as she was honoured for her bronze medal in the omnium at the Olympic Games in Rio.
Longo Borghini nominated for Gazzetta dello Sport woman of the year
Italian rider Elisa Longo Borghini has been nominated in the woman of the year category for this year’s Gazzetta dello Sport awards. Newly crowned junior road race world champion Elisa Balsamo has also been put up for the award.
Longo Borghini has had a successful 2016 campaign with victories at the national time trial championships, the Giro dell’Emilia and the mountains classification at the Giro Rosa. She also claimed a string of top three placings at the Italian Grand Tour. The biggest moment of her season was the bronze medal she took at the Olympic Road Race, an event that was won by Dutch rider Anna van der Breggen, she also finished fifth in the time trial.
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Speaking to Gazzetta dello Sport about her nomination, Longo Borghini said that her bronze in Rio has changed her. “It is the dream that I had a little girl of nine years old from first bike race that came true,” said Longo Borghini. “On an emotional level, I no longer suffer in competition, I removed many doubts and many fears of not being as good as others. Now people stop me in the supermarket and even asks me: 'Are you the Longo Borghini?' ".
In the brief interview, Longo Borghini pinpoints the Ardennes week as a big goal for her in 2017, along with the Giro Rosa’s GC and the World Championships in Bergen.
Becker wins Telkom 94.7 Cycle Challenge
Charlotte Becker (Hitec Products) sprinted to victory at the Telkom 94.7 Cycle Challenge in South Africa this weekend. The German rider broke away with several other riders in the final kilometres of the one-day race. Try as they might to shake her, Becker hung on to take the win by a comfortable margin with Bizkaia-Durango pairing Margarita Victoria Garcia and Lise Olivier claiming second and third respectively.
“They made it really hard for me on the last two climbs but I thought when I made it to the last roundabout that I really had a good chance,” Becker told Voxwomen.
Rabobank says goodbye to cycling
After 21 years involved in cycling, the Dutch company Rabobank said goodbye to the sport at an event held by the Dutch Cycling Federation (KNWU). Rabobank first joined the sport in 1996 when they sponsored the men’s professional team, before going on to sponsor a women’s squad and a development team.
It cut many of its ties with cycling in 2012 following the USADA case into doping at US Postal. Many allegations of doping within the team surfaced after the report was released and the team finds its self embroiled in it once again with the publication of Thomas Dekker’s new autobiography.
The women’s team Rabo-Liv, which was home to Marianne Vos, Anna van der Breggen and Pauline Ferrand Prevot, was the last vestige of Rabobank’s ties with the sport. However, they announced at the end of last season that 2016 would be their last. Many of the team’s top riders have moved elsewhere while Vos held firm and has created the WM3 Energie team from the remnants of the set-up.
