The Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comine di Cittiglio marks the start of the 2011 Women’s Road World Cup this Sunday. The race starts and finishes in the town of Cittiglio, the birthplace of the legendary Binda, to the west of Varese in the north of the Lombardia region of Italy.
Sunday’s race will start without the winner of the last two editions, Marianne Vos (Nederland Bloeit), who is currently competing in the World Track Championships.
The 121.4km race starts outside the Alfredo Binda Museum and heads out on a leg-softening 52.2km out-and-back loop to the shores of Lago Maggiore, returning via a climb to Cunardo. Having returned to Cittiglio the race then takes on four 17.3km finishing circuits, scaling the Orino climb on each occasion.
The final 8km of the course are predominantly downhill, until the peloton rounds the final corner with 400 metres to go and the finishing straight rises steadily all the way to the line.
Who will win?
In the absence of Vos there are a number of favourites, with most of the riders who have done well here in the past at the head of strong teams this weekend.
Last year’s second place Martine Bras leads her new Dolmans Landscaping team, but the big favourite from last year’s podium will be Emma Johansson (Hitec Products-UCK). The Swedish champion has already proved to be the rider to beat on the road this year, including a successful defence of her Omloop Het Nieuwsblad at the end of last month.
The most recent winner to start will be Emma Pooley (Garmin-Cervélo); her long solo victory in the 2008 edition was the race that finally made the World sit up and take notice of the British champion’s talent; since then she has gone on to win an number of other World Cup races, an Olympic silver medal and the World time trial championship. Pooley will lead a strong Garmin-Cervélo team, which includes local rider Noemi Cantele, who really wants to win this race.
Nicole Cooke (MCipollini-Giambenini) won the race the year before Pooley, before it was a World Cup event. The Olympic champion has endured a couple of miserable years, in which she’s seen her British number one status taken by Pooley, but seems to be revived, both physically and psychologically, by joining the new Italian team. Alongside Cooke will be fellow previous World champions Marta Bastianelli and Tatiana Guderzo, as well as Italian champion Monia Baccaille, who will be showing off a new design tricolore jersey to commemorate her country’s 150th birthday.
Pyrennial favourite Judith Arndt will lead the usual powerful HTC-Highroad team, but with a reduced roster in 2011, the team will be fielding just five riders in Cittiglio as it will also be racing in the San Dimas Stage Race. Evelyn Stevens will obviously be a name to watch, as will über-sprinter Ina Teutenberg, although the German will likely find the course a bit hilly for her liking.
Elsewhere Claudia Häusler leads Diadora-Pasta Zara, which includes US champion Mara Abbott and Olga Zabelinskaya; the Russian returned to the sport last year after having children and almost took the field by surprise with a late attack that was only neutralised in the final few hundred metres.
German puncheur Trixi Worrack will lead the AA Drink-Leontien.nl team with the support of the climbing talents of Irene Van Den Broek, and the all round prowess of Dutch prodigy Chantal Blaak.
With budgets still small in women’s cycling there will be a number of big names starting the race as part of their national squads, rather than their trade teams.
The Netherlands team, of which Vos was a part when taking both of her victories, is largely made up of riders from Nederland Bloeit and Skil-Koga. This sees Dutch champion Loes Gunnewijk and Vos’ right-hand-woman Annemiek Van Vleuten team up with Regina Bruins in what could be a formidable combination.
Other big names in national teams include Ruth Corset for Australia and Ronde van Vlaanderen champion Grace Verbeke for Belgium.
The race also sees the 2011 European debut for US team Tibco-To the Top.
The season-long competition starts here
Vos’ absence gives her rivals the opportunity to get a head start over the winner of the last two overall World Cups. Johansson has been the one to run her the closest on both occasions and, should she pick up a decent result on Sunday, the Swedish champion is well capable of defending a lead in the competition all the way to Plouay at the end of August.
UCI Women's World Cup 2011
March 27th - Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio (Italy)
April 3rd - Ronde van Vlaanderen (Belgium)
April 16th - Ronde van Drenthe (Netherlands)
April 20th - La Flèche Wallonne Féminine (Belgium)
May 15th - Tour of Chongming Island World Cup (China)
June 5th - GP Ciudad de Valladolid (Spain)
July 29th - Open de Suède Vargarda TTT (Sweden)
July 31st - Open de Suède Vargarda (Sweden)
August 27th - GP de Plouay-Bretagne (France)