5th June 2011
The women's racing has been very quiet, of late - well, May is the time when the peloton should be attacking the Pyrenees, in the late, lamented Tour de l'Aude - but we're back out of that slump, and about to hit the stage races. But first, the next round of the World Cup!
GP Ciudad de Valladolid kicks off a week of racing in Spain. The riders will head north, to the Basque Country, for Durango Durango Emakumeen Saria on Tuesday, and then on Thursday it's the Iuretta Emakumeen Bira. This is a 5-stage race over 4 days.... including an uphill time trail in the Basque mountains. There'll be a more in-depth race preview of that, but below the jump - what can we expect from the World Cup? There's a video from last year just below the jump...
The race is actually running right now - and there's a ticker in Spanish here - and Alrikkson Go:Green are providing in-race tweets.
EDIT! And the race has a twitter account, where they're posting updates, info and photos - it's a really good one! Thanks Monty!
The race starts with a big 90km loop, with some nice hills to attack on, before returning to Valladolid for five laps of a 6.6km town circuit - which has plenty of long, stright roads, and the race running on either side of the same road for stretches, so riders can see exactly where each other are.
Maps are here - and CyclingFever has a great race preview, with profiles - and the startlist can be found on Cyclingnews.
Big questions today - can Emma Johansson take her first World Cup win of the season? She REALLY wants it! Will Nederland Bloeit's Annemiek van Vleuten end the day in the leader's jersey? She told me she would rather go for the race win than the season win, but they do like that stripey jersey.... or will her team-mate Marianne Vos take it back from her? Or is today the day we see some plucky escape artists from other teams get out ahead and have some World Cup glory? For one in a long time, Ina-Yoko Teutenberg is riding here rather than in the USA.... maybe HTC will want to keep this one sprinty? They do have last year's 1st & 2nd placed riders, Charlotte Becker & Judith Arndt on board.....