Last month, after the inaugural Strade Bianche, the UCI sat down with a number of the top female cyclists to outline their plans for a women’s WorldTour – a series that would try to mirror the already established men’s WorldTour. After making several breakthroughs in the past two seasons, in terms of their calendar, the inception of a WorldTour for the women would be the first major structural step forward for the female peloton in some time.
Recent Tour of Flanders victor Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-Honda) was one of the riders who stayed in Siena to attend the seminar, along with her team manager Rochelle Gilmore. Despite her young years – she’s still only 23 – Longo Borghini already has a wealth of experience at the top level, and she sat down with Cyclingnews to discuss what the UCI’s plans mean for her and the rest of women’s cycling.
“For me, it’s a kind of emotional to think about having a proper professional calendar and a WorldTour,” Longo Borghini tells Cyclingnews. “The team that I’m riding in right now, everything is almost like the men’s. We have a really good structure. We have a lot of support from the team, sponsors, management. It’s really good, I think that we are an example to follow and the other teams can keep an eye on us because Rochelle Gilmore is doing a great job, not only for her team but for the world of women’s cycling.”
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The UCI are still ironing out the finer details but the plan is for the women's WorldTour to be in place for the start of the 2016 season. It will assume the place of the current World Cup series, which comprises of 10 rounds, and includes races such as last weekend’s Tour of Flanders. At present, all rounds of the World Cup are one-day races but the new WorldTour will be made up of a mixture of one-day and stage races. The Giro d’Italia and the Tour of California are set to join the list of races, along with Strade Bianche and La Course – both the Tour de France and Vuelta a España editions.
In addition, all of the WorldTour races would be broadcast live on the UCI’s YouTube channel, which already hosts highlights packages of each of the World Cup rounds. This is by no means a definitive list and could change before 2016 rolls around. Like many, Longo Borghini would also like to see the return of the women’s Tour de France. “It would be really cool and I dream of riding the Tour de France,” she says.
“I think that the main problem for the Tour de France is the commercial parade, they are coming with trucks for the sponsors two hours before so that would be an issue. ASO said that the main issue is that one because they need to close the roads but I don’t exclude the option that somewhere in the future there will be a Tour de France for women again because they’ve had it already.”
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