'The level is a thousand times higher than 2013' - Tiffany Cromwell on her Omloop Het Nieuwsblad victory and how the Classics have transformed since

When the women's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad gets underway on Saturday there will be four former winners on the start line. You can probably easily remember at least two, with defending champion Lotte Claes returning and her compatriot Lotte Kopecky probably the number one favourite to win again this year. The third previous victor is Anna van der Breggen, who won twice in her pre-hiatus career.

But the fourth? Well, you might have to think a little bit further back to remember that one: Canyon-SRAM's Tiffany Cromwell, the only former winner on the start list not to have claimed victory in this decade, as her Omloop win came all the way back in 2013.

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad was a different race back then and indeed women's cycling was a different sport in many ways. The opening race of the spring Classics was a 1.2 event, way before the Women's WorldTour even existed, sitting outside of the now-defunct World Cup calendar but an important race nonetheless.

It also had a very different course, with the climbs coming earlier and the finale being flatter, making for a different kind of dynamic and a different kind of winner. But some things don't change: Opening Weekend was bitterly cold in 2013, as it still often is, and when the women's race rolled out of Gent, it was still an event that all the top riders wanted to win.

"It's definitely still strong in my memory, because I'm not a rider who's had a lot of big victories, so the ones that I have had have always left a lasting impression," Tiffany Cromwell told Cyclingnews as she reflected on her victory a few days before making her 13th start in Omloop.

"It was one of those days that just went perfect. The goal wasn't for me to win, we had Emma Johansson in the team and the goal was to work for her, she was obviously always one of the big favourites in those races. But as an Australian coming out of the Australian summer, we often have good form early, and it was just that."

Racing for what was then Orica-AIS, Cromwell's team was definitely one of the strongest that day, alongside squads like Rabobank-Liv Giant and Specialized-Lululemon. Her teammates were Emma Johansson – who took third – Loes Gunnewijk, Gracie Elvin, Amanda Spratt and Jessie Maclean.

"I got there, it was a really, really cold day, we had a super cold spring. If you look back at the pictures, I'm in full thermals" – and she had a neck warmer pulled up over her face – "I was just doing the job, back then the race always started at the same point. It was easy for the first 50k then we hit the first climb, and from there it would explode and you'd get your selection. It's the cobbled climbs, then you'd go into the long cobbled flats, and then we'd have like 20k to the finish.

"Us as a team, I remember we had numbers off there, and it was just like one after another – we'd attack and try and get away and that's what we did. It just worked out that my attack was the one that went away. I was with Megan Guarnier [Rabobank-Liv Giant] and I was really hoping she was playing poker face because I was going pretty hard on that break for a two-up sprint, but luckily it all worked out. The atmosphere, the super coldness, just winning a Classic, everything together was quite special."

Cromwell had already won stages of the Giro d'Italia Femminile and Route de France at this point, but even though it had only started in 2006 and wasn't officially in the upper echelon of events, winning Omloop was a big result to add to her palmarès.

"Omloop always held [that prestige] even though for us it was, on the ranking side of things, one of the lower-ranked races. I remember when I won it, people were like 'wow, that's huge, you won a Classic'," she recalled.

"I think because it has been around for such a long time, both on the men's and the women's side, I think it has always been looked at as an important race and a race where if you win it, you're showing yourself as a contender for the rest of the Spring Classics. Being WorldTour or not WorldTour, I don't think that's changed the prestige of the actual event, just because it was always synonymous with the Classics and Opening Weekend."

A very different race 13 years on

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is still that race that demarcates the start of the Spring Classics, even if it's not actually the start of the season anymore, but as women's cycling in general has changed and transformed, so has Omloop.

What was once the first major hit-out of the season no longer is, with riders other than just the Australians now regularly starting racing in January, with plenty of events in the southern hemisphere and Europe preceding Omloop. That means it's a very different peloton that arrives on the start line in Gent.

"The traditionalists still look at it as Opening Weekend even though it's far from actual Opening Weekend, but it's still the Opening Weekend of the Classics. But I think people come into it now with a lot more fitness, a lot more form," Cromwell said.

"The sport has got way more professionalised, way more serious, teams are doing more and more training camps. So for sure people are coming to the start line and the depth is much, much deeper.

"It's also a WorldTour event now whereas before you'd have 200 riders, bigger fields than we have now, but the level was very split. You'd have maybe one third that was really fighting for the win and the rest were just there until it split apart and then they were dropped. I think that's the biggest difference we're seeing now. We're seeing more riders are getting to the critical points so it's a longer fight for more of the race and the level is a thousand times higher than 2013."

A lot of this is down to the way women's cycling in general has transformed in even the last five years, let alone the last 13 – "The whole sport has changed. The preparation that goes into it, doing the recon, the fueling, the feed zones," Cromwell said, but also Omloop has become tougher and hillier, increasing in difficulty as the level in the peloton has increased.

"It started as being not as hard as what it is now, it was more like the warm up into the Classics, but like with many events they've all got harder, they try to make them more challenging. The layout was you'd have the climbs in the middle and the flat cobbles at the end, and now it's like a bit of mix and match.

"For me I've seen that it's become more like the original Flanders that I first raced, when it finished with the Muur and Bosberg. Flanders got rid of that as their final and then Omloop kind of said 'OK, we want to make our race a little bit harder, make the dynamic a bit different' so then they started changing the course a little bit and adding more cobbled climbs, mixing up the flat and the cobbles," Cromwell explained.

"I think that's added to the excitement of the race, and sure there will be years where the dynamic maybe doesn't work as everybody expects and it is more negative racing, and other years where it is a super exciting race."

Flanders Classics at the forefront

Opening Weekend and the start of the Classics also means the start of a run of races organised by Flanders Classics, who, over the last two decades, have shown themselves at the very front of pushing for change in women's cycling, ahead of legacy organisers like ASO and RCS.

"I'd say the other sizeable change is that Flanders Classics as a race promoter, they were one of the first to say 'OK, the sport is growing'. They were one of the first to put in the TV time, or more than the mandatory, and they put us into the prime time slot so it means we start later but we're also finishing after the men, so we get probably more crowds throughout the course and more people coming just for the women's race," Cromwell said, also pointing to the stature of home stars like Lotte Kopecky as to why the Belgian fans are increasingly getting behind women's racing.

"And they've done it in a way that makes more sense, even if on paper you're not sure. For example the prize money, that wasn't the first thing they did matching prize money to the men, because they understood that there's other things that are more important than the prize money if we want to develop in the right ways.

"Now they have since matched it, but I agree with that step, instead of just being like 'oh yay, we get equal prize money' which as riders is fantastic but if you don't have the TV viewership, if you don't have a good organisation, you don't have the safety measures, all that stuff... It matters less to a rider to have equal prize money if it comes before all the other things that are important for the racing side of the sport."

The result of Flanders Classics' efforts with their women's races means that on Saturday so many more eyes will be on the women's race than were back in 2013, both on television and by the roadside, with thousands likely to fill the 't Kuipke velodrome for the start, too. This is a positive sign for the sport as a whole, but also just adds a level of enjoyment for the riders, especially those that haven't always seen the sport celebrated in this way.

"I'm a performer and I've always been like that. If I go to a race and there's an atmosphere, there's a crowd, there's excitement, it's so much more fun to race," Cromwell said. "I don't know if that's the same for every bike rider but I'm sure it is for a lot. When you have that and you see the people coming to starts, to the buses, being excited – yes we do the sport because we love it – but that shows you that other people appreciate what we're doing as well and want to support and be inspired by it.

"Having events that get behind that is also really good, when they put on a big show for the team presentation and look for ways that we can keep bringing the crowds in and making it accessible and try to do their part, as everybody is, to continue to grow the sport."

2026 with Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto

As much as Tiffany Cromwell's longevity in the sport means she can look back and see the change that's happened – "I'm in a fortunate position where I've lived the growth of the sport. The generation behind me, they didn't quite get to experience the actual rise of women's cycling," she said – she isn't one to get stuck in the past.

Now 37, she will be the oldest rider on the start line on Saturday as well as the most experienced. A small handful of other riders who started Omloop in 2013 are still racing, but only two others are set to race it again this year: Thalita de Jong and Anna van der Breggen.

But Cromwell is not resigning herself to being a veteran and even after nearly two decades in the pro peloton there's still no feeling that she's in the twilight of her career. She will race these spring Classics with a job to do for her Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto team as their road captain and a vital domestique, as they aim at nothing lower than wins.

"For me, I've had my ups and downs, I've had my results but also been there and been a teammate, but I think I've had a team that has really appreciated what I bring to the team and doing that role, being a teammate," she said.

"With Canyon-SRAM, there's plenty of times they could have said 'you're not good enough anymore' but knowing that I'm valued, knowing I can still come to the start line and be competitive, even if it's not fighting results. Sure I'd love to be, but I also have to look at the bigger picture and know what I bring to the team. I think that's what keeps me motivated."

As for the weeks ahead, the goal will be to compete with the strongest teams and try to deliver Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto to their first major Classics win since Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney's Flèche Wallonne title in 2024.

"As a team, we're always there to try and win and we're always trying to analyse what we need to do better to be there, how can we beat the bigger teams. We have our struggles, and we're constantly trying to work through them, but for Omloop we have a really exciting team that's motivated to support each other, so I think the key is getting a good start. If we can start well I think that will give the confidence to the team," she said.

"For me personally, I'm coming into this season – at least so far – with some of the better form that I've ever had so I'm personally motivated to see what I can do for the team and how far I can go and how much I can be part of the race more than just a positioning role.

"But as I said, we want to win," she concluded, and even though it may not be her personally again, that desire to succeed is still there just as it was in 2013.

"Every team goes with the highest ambitions and then they're either crash and burn in the first race or you start well and you just keep building on that so we're hoping for the latter. We've done a lot of hard work, with training camps and building that team dynamic, so I think we can go in with really big ambitions on Saturday."

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