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Lotte Kopecky and an entire horde of Dutch dominators will put an exclamation level on the Paris highway program Sunday within the ladies’s Olympic highway race.
The ladies’s highway race packs the status of being the ultimate occasion within the 2024 Olympic highway calendar and can carry all of the items for a thriller.
Kopecky is on a mission to carry gold to Staff Belgium after she was upstaged within the marquee Flandrien classics.
A terrifying trio from “Staff NL” is out to place its orange-liveried practice again on the tracks after Austrian interloper Anna Kiesenhofer defied the Dutch Olympic profitable streak in Tokyo.
And the Italians are trying spoil the social gathering for completely everybody because the nation continues to quest for its first ladies’s Olympic highway race win.
The spectacular Paris metropolis heart parcours will flip the hype as much as 11 on Sunday.
Some 1,700m of climbing throughout a full menu of Parisien ache will make racing laborious, however not so laborious that it’ll stopper bold racing.
With a flat 10km run to the road, it’s a 158km route that’s merciless sufficient for cobblestone-munchers, climb-y sufficient for Ardennes racers, and never out of the query for the bunch-kickers.
That’s why this 12 months’s race will function a few clear favorites and an entire steady of darkish horses.
Right here’s how we rank the favorites for Sunday’s race:
Lotte Kopecky (Belgium): ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Season highlights: 1st – Paris-Roubaix, Strade Bianche, Nokere Koerse; 2nd – Trofeo Alfredo Binda; fifth – Tour of Flanders; stage wins – UAE Tour, Tour of Britain, Giro d’Italia; GC victory – UAE Tour, Tour of Britain
- Teammates: Margot Vanpachtenbeke, Julie van der Velde, Justine Ghekiere
Lotte Kopecky reasserted her standing as queen of the classics within the spring and surprised the climbers this summer time in Italy. Gold in Paris is subsequent on the 28-year-old’s more and more full to-do record as she sails by her mid-career pillage on each nook of motorbike racing.
Not like many within the ladies’s peloton, the Video games aren’t any sideshow for Kopecky.
The Belgian celebrity turned her season the other way up and pulled her title from rivalry for the Tour de France Femmes in service of the 2 Olympic weeks in Paris, the place she hoped for gold within the time trial, highway race, and Omnium.
The highway race Sunday is the Grail on the heart of that Olympic trinity for Kopecky.
And it’s simple to see why.
The Flanders-flavored Paris parcours is ideal for the two-time Ronde champion Kopecky’s punch and pace and will symbolize one of the best alternative at gold in her whole profession.
Kopecky must be thought-about outright favourite for Sunday’s race, however she received’t have it easy in opposition to a devastating Dutch division.
The Belgian baller is best suited to Paris’ route than any one of many orange armada of Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes, and Marianne Vos.
But when the Dutchwomen work the numbers to their benefit and ship super-sprinter Wiebes to the road, not even” Queen Kopecky” will be capable of maintain the wheel.
Crappy climate and an overcooked nook undid Kopecky within the time trial final weekend. It would take a full orange offense to cease her within the highway race on Sunday.
Lorena Wiebes, Demi Vollering, Marianne Vos (Netherlands): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Season highlights:
- Vollering: Stage wins and GC – Vuelta Feminina, Itzulia, Vuelta Burgos, Tour de Suisse; 2nd – Flèche Wallonne, Brabantse Pijl; third – Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- Wiebes: 1st – Gent-Wevelgem, Ronde van Drenthe, Scheldeprijs; 2nd – Amstel Gold, Nokere Koerse; stage wins and GC – Experience London, Baloise Tour; stage wins – UAE Tour, Vuelta a Burgos, Tour of Britain
- Vos: 1st – Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Dwars Door Vlaaanderen, Amstel Gold; 4th – Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix; stage wins – Vuelta Femenina, Volta Catalunya
- Teammate: Ellen van Dijk
Count on the entrance of Sunday’s Olympic highway race to be tinted orange.
Like nearly each one-day championship in reminiscence, the Netherlands will carry extra leaders to the startline than it is aware of what to do with.
Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes, Marianne Vos, and Ellen van Dijk are an superior foursome with one thing for each situation.
It’s a humiliation of riches, however not a buy-in for achievement.
How the Dutch DSs deal their pack of aces in Sunday’s radioless highway race might be intriguing.
On paper, “Staff NL” has all it must confound Kopecky, regardless of how racing performs out. Wiebes is the world’s greatest sprinter, Vollering is a victory-munching climber, and Vos is … Vos.
Staff officers declared earlier this 12 months that fast-finisher Wiebes was the “chosen one” for its battle royale with Staff Belgium.
It’s a choice completely reliant on the Dutch with the ability to ship a reduced-sprint finale. And that’s simpler mentioned than carried out.
Pre-decided directives can simply be pushed right into a pothole of private ambition in a race that may symbolize a once-in-a-career alternative.
Vollering and Vos might want to neglect their very own palmarès Sunday and dig deep for Wiebes and the broader Dutch trigger.
The Dutch have been surprised at Kiesenhofer’s audacious long-range assault in Tokyo 2020. There might be no permitting for any upset in Paris on Sunday.
Elisa Longo Borghini, Elisa Balsamo (Italy): ⭐⭐⭐
- Season highlights:
- ELB: 1st – Tour of Flanders, Brabantse Pijl; 2nd – Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège; third – Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Flèche Wallonne; stage win and GC – Giro d’Italia
- Balsamo: 1st – Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Brugges-De Panne; 2nd – Paris-Roubaix, Gent-Wevelgem, Ronde van Drenthe; 2 x stage win – Volta Valenciana
- Teammates: Silvia Persico, Elena Cecchini
Elisa Longo Borghini has been jabbing on the flanks of Lotte Kopecky all season lengthy, and the Italian veteran might be hoping to throw her final haymaker Sunday.
The uber-aggressive Italian sparred with five-star Olympic favourite Kopecky by an entire spherical of high-profile classics bouts this spring.
Kopecky outclassed Longo Borghini on residence territory at Strade Bianche and the Italian repaid the ache by denying Kopecky a third-straight win at De Ronde.
Will probably be fascinating to see how the 2 stack up Sunday on a course that fits each equally with its Tour of Flanders-meets-Liège-Bastogne-Liège vibe.
Longo Borghini will experience a wave of confidence and type into her Sunday showdown with Kopecky and the Dutch horde.
Victory on the Tour of Flanders and a long-sought, emotionally captured GC title on the Giro d’Italia have made 2024 one in every of her greatest seasons but.
Longo Borghini’s motivation might be equally sky-high. After putting third on the Video games in each Rio and Tokyo, Paris may symbolize the 32-year-old’s greatest, and possibly final, likelihood at Olympic gold.
Past its veteran chief, Staff Italy might be buoyed Sunday by the presence of super-speedy Elisa Balsamo.
If the previous world champ makes it to the ultimate for a small group dash, only a few – not even Lorena Wiebes – might be assured taking her to the road.
Grace Brown (Australia): ⭐⭐
- Season highlights: 1st – Olympic TT, Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- Teammates: Lauretta Hanson, Ruby Roseman-Gannon
Can Grace Brown do it once more Sunday?
Why not.
Brown will line out as a critical contender for the highway race Sunday, simply eight days after she topped the Video games’ time trial podium final weekend.
As a perennial podium-botherer in each the northern and Ardennes classics, the retiring Aussie’s final Video games present her a golden likelihood at a sensational Olympic double.
Will probably be a stretch for Australia’s 32-year-old ace, nevertheless it’s not out of the query.
Brown isn’t one of many top-tier favorites like Lotte Kopecky and Elisa Longo Borghini, however she confirmed along with her victory this spring in Liège-Bastogne-Liège she will be able to dangle robust by the season’s hardest races and nonetheless kick sturdy in a dash.
Brown indicated the strain is off for this weekend’s highway race after her excellent begin final Saturday within the time trial.
The liberty to race with aptitude, and the safety of getting dark-horse teammate Ruby Roseman-Gannon for backup, means Brown could possibly be all of the extra harmful in her highway race swan-song.
Kristen Faulkner (USA): ⭐
- Season highlights: 1st – Omloop Het Hageland; stage win – Vuelta Feminina, Trofeo Ponente in Rosa; sixth – Strade Bianche
- Teammate: Chloé Dygert
Might Kristen Faulkner strike a shock gold medal for USA on Sunday?
The percentages are lengthy, however few would wish to wager in opposition to the Alaskan star.
Faulkner has nearly no expectations for the highway race Sunday, and that could possibly be her secret weapon.
The 31-year-old was solely added to the U.S. highway race staff final month after triathlete Taylor Knibb pulled her title from the operating, and he or she maintains the main focus of her ambition is on the Staff Pursuit subsequent week.
Faulkner thrives from laborious and aggressive racing, and he or she’ll have all of the psychological liberty to maneuver in what might be a “YOLO” romp round Paris.
USA’s rower-turned-rider might be joined on the highway Sunday by her Pursuit teammate Chloé Dygert for what ought to be a robust pairing.
Even with out teammates for help, these two big-engine rouleurs might be watched carefully this weekend by rival Dutch, Italian, and Belgian domestiques.
They’re too harmful to let go.
And a whole lot of outsiders ….
There’s an enormous steady of darkish horses poised to stampede into Paris on Sunday.
Kasia Niewiadoma (Poland) and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Denmark) have the shape and the pedigree, however the 1,700m ascent may not make Paris laborious sufficient for the climber pair.
Arduous-hitting all-rounders Alison Jackson (Canada), Lianne Lippert (Germany), Pfeiffer Georgi (Nice Britain), and residential star Juliette Labous (France) will all fancy their probabilities on the spring classics-style parcours.
And if GB and Denmark’s prime leaders Georgi and Uttrup Ludwig don’t survive any assaults over the ultimate climb, few will wish to see fast-finishers Lizzie Deignan (Nice Britain) and Emma Norsgaard (Denmark) of their wheels on the kilometers into the Trocadero.