The next block of racing at the Dutch Championships is started by a Jumbo-Visma rider.
Marianne Vos has polished her form in preparation for one of the season’s most significant racing blocks, during which she will compete in the Dutch Road Championships, the Giro d’Italia Donne, and the Tour de France Women.
Vos was prevented from competing at Paris-Roubaix Femmes before her spring goal because of COVID-19. Although she resumed racing at the one-day Veenendaal Classic after attending a training camp from May 10 to 19, she has not competed since May 20.
She recently returned from an altitude training camp in the Sierra Nevada where she was getting ready for her upcoming competitions, which will start with the Dutch Road Championships on Saturday in VAM-Berg and continue with the back-to-back Giro d’Italia Donne (June 30-July 10) and Tour de France Femmes (July 24-31).
Vos stated on Instagram that after three weeks at high altitude and attempting to strike the appropriate mix between training and relaxation, it was time to say goodbye to Pradollano and head home to prepare. “Next: Nationals RR 25th of June, Giro 30th of June, TdF 24th of July. Excited.”
Vos has won the national road race championship five times, but not since 2011. This year’s race will cover a 123 km course and end at the VAM-Berg.
She will next travel to Italy for the Giro d’Italia Donne, where she will be a serious candidate for stage victories and likely try to break her record of 31 stage victories, which she achieved between 2007 and 2021.
The first three legs of the Italian competition will take place all along the eastern coastline of Sardinia’s capital city of Cagliari on the 30th of June. The race will go from Sardinia to the mainland after a rest day on July 3 before stage 4 in Cesena.
Following that, the route will head north, traveling through Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Adige, and Veneto. The mountain-top finish is at Passo Maniva. before coming to an end in Padova on July 10.
Just two weeks later, at the Tour de France Femmes, the newest event on the schedule will take place. The first stage will take place along the Champs-Élysées in Paris, the same location where Vos won the first La Course in 2014 and again in Pau in 2019.
She stated in an interview with Femmes du Tour on YouTube that in La Course, every year was really special, after the first time she won on the Champs-Élysées, it was special to be involved in the Tour de France. The day has come when it makes changes or transitions from a one-day race to an eight-day event to a full Grand Tour, contrary to what she had also anticipated there would be room for growth.
She continued and said that when she was younger and standing by the side of the road supporting the men, she never envisaged competing in the Tour de France. For her, it is a first in something else, and truly fascinating to be a part of it right now.
Before concluding at the top of La Planche des Belles Filles, the Tour de France Femmes will span 1,029 kilometers and feature two stages for the puncheurs, a stage filled with gravel sectors, four flat stages, and back-to-back mountain stages.