{"id":204444,"date":"2025-12-31T08:39:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T08:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=204444"},"modified":"2025-12-31T08:39:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T08:39:31","slug":"womens-cycling-highlights-2025-real-power-promising-progress-and-the-slow-hard-work-of-building-a-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/12\/31\/womens-cycling-highlights-2025-real-power-promising-progress-and-the-slow-hard-work-of-building-a-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Cycling Highlights 2025 : Real Power, Promising Progress, and the Slow Hard Work of Building a Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you were looking for a single, neat headline to sum up women\u2019s cycling in 2025, you probably didn\u2019t find it. There was no one race that \u201cchanged everything\u201d, no total breakout star, no clean before-and-after moment. And honestly? That\u2019s not a failure, it\u2019s just a sign of where the sport actually is.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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This year felt like riding through the middle of a long stage: legs warm, terrain changing, decisions being made that won\u2019t pay off for another few kilometres. There were big moments, of course. But there were also organisers committing to better representation, riders refusing to be defined by a single discipline, and federations beginning (slowly) to invest in the long game. It was a year of consolidation, and that might be exactly what women\u2019s cycling needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Road Racing: Classics, stage races and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift ripples<\/b><\/h2>\n

Unsurprisingly, the spring classics delivered. In March, Demi Vollering<\/a> reaffirmed her punchy form with a win at Strade Bianche Donne, attacking on the gravel sectors and ascending to victory in Siena.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

April brought La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne Femmes, where Puck Pieterse, already making waves as one of cycling\u2019s most versatile talents, secured her first major one-day classic win atop the iconic Mur de Huy, outpacing Vollering and seasoned climber Elisa Longo Borghini.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Not far behind, Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition saw Mischa Bredewold capitalize on a well-timed attack on the Cauberg to solo to victory, proving that depth beyond the traditional \u201cbig three\u201d (Vollering, Vos, Longo Borghini) is real and growing.<\/span> And Li\u00e8ge\u2013Bastogne\u2013Li\u00e8ge Femmes delivered one of the season\u2019s great feel-good stories when Kimberley Le Court of AG Insurance-Soudal won in a four-rider sprint, showcasing how national champions from outside the traditional powerhouse nations are breaking through on the WorldTour stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stage racing reinforced that repeat excellence still matters. The Itzulia Women in the Basque Country, always a hard-fought three-day tester before the Tour, was claimed for the third time by Vollering, who also swept the mountains classification.<\/span> Performances like these have helped justify her role as a perennial GC contender in week-long and Grand Tour formats alike.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then came the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, now in its third edition and tougher than ever with nine stages across varied terrain. Coverage expanded, fan engagement grew, and there was plenty of drama to go around: the 38-year-old legend Marianne Vos took the opening stage win in Plumelec, reminding the peloton why she remains one of the sport\u2019s all-time greats.<\/span> On the final day\u2019s mountaintop finish in Ch\u00e2tel, Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot unleashed a long solo attack to secure not just the stage win but the overall title.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the race also highlighted a persistent reality: total prize money across all classifications remains modest, around \u20ac264,000 for the whole Tour, with the general classification winner\u2019s prize of \u20ac50,000 only about 10 % of the equivalent in the men\u2019s race.<\/span><\/p>\n

Multi-discipline dynamo: Cycling\u2019s cross-pollination<\/b><\/h2>\n

One of the ways the women are coping with the economic realities of their sport also marks another highlight that made 2025 especially compelling: the cross-disciplinary<\/span> journeys of its stars. Puck Pieterse\u2019s sprint to <\/span>La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne<\/span><\/i>, after a strong spring across varied racing formats, is a case study in this new model. Not to mention known mountain bike darling Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot claiming the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

On the cyclocross front, season highlights included Lucinda Brand dominating a UCI World Cup round in Namur with clinical power and tactical precision, even against the well-rounded Pieterse.<\/span> European champion Inge van der Heijden kept up her momentum with multiple wins, including Exact Cross Kortrijk, asserting deeper competition in cyclocross beyond the usual suspects.<\/span> Meanwhile, young talents like Makena Kellerman claimed U23 national titles in the U.S., pointing to emerging depth in alternative pathways into elite racing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

In mountain biking, veterans and rising stars continued to claim marquee wins: Jenny Rissveds stood atop XCO podiums at UCI Mountain Bike World Series events such as Les Gets, highlighting how early-season form and race savvy translate across surfaces.<\/span> In 2025, gravel racing also reached a milestone with the <\/span>UCI Gravel World Championships<\/span><\/i>, where the women\u2019s elite race unfolded over a punchy, challenging course and crowned champions in what\u2019s quickly becoming one of the most spectator-friendly formats outside traditional road cycling. Lorena Wiebes ultimately took the title in a dazzling sprint finish, overtaking Marianne Vos and Silvia Persico, after solo leader Shirin van Anrooij was caught in the final meters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rwanda 2025 set a new tone going forward\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

For the first time, at the 2025 UCI Road World Championships, the women\u2019s elite and junior races unfolded in a context that actively questioned the sport\u2019s traditional centre of gravity. Hosting the World Championships on the African continent exposed long-standing assumptions about where elite cycling belongs, who gets access to world-class racing environments, and who is visible when the sport\u2019s biggest spotlight turns on.<\/span><\/p>\n

The women\u2019s programme was treated with the seriousness it deserves. Riders spoke openly about the difficulty, long climbs at altitude, relentless pacing, and tactical complexity. But perhaps the most important impact happened away from the results sheets. Seeing women\u2019s World Championship races take place in Kigali mattered for the riders lining up, and for the girls watching from the roadside. Visibility at this scale reframes cycling not as a distant European tradition, but as a global sport with space for new stories, new champions, and new pathways.<\/span><\/p>\n

Representation Matters: Opening the peloton\u2019s doors wider<\/b><\/h2>\n

With that in mind, it is fair to reiterate that the peloton has remained, in many ways, geographically and culturally narrow. In 2025, that reality was challenged in a way that felt genuinely hopeful.<\/span><\/p>\n

At Rouleur Live this autumn, Ashleigh Moolman Pasio stood alongside Team Amani and longtime collaborator Xylon van Eyck to <\/span>announce the launch of something unprecedented:<\/a> the first purely African UCI Women\u2019s Continental Team<\/span>, set to debut in the 2026 season. The team will be composed entirely of Black African riders, with its inaugural roster drawn predominantly from East Africa, and led by a Rwandan woman, Xaverine Nirere.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Zobrazit p\u0159\u00edsp\u011bvek na Instagramu<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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P\u0159\u00edsp\u011bvek sd\u00edlen\u00fd Ashleigh Moolman Pasio (@ashleighcycling)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n