‘A very good check’ – Lotte Kopecky begins pursuit of Tour de France Femmes title at Vuelta a Burgos

Excelling within the Classics once more could have been the main focus for Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) within the early a part of the 2025 season however the work towards the world champion’s Tour de France Femmes aspirations is now taking centre-stage, starting at Vuelta a Burgos Feminas on Thursday.

Up till this yr, 2023 winner Demi Vollering has been the principle total card for SD Worx-Protime on the French Grand Tour however, with the Dutch now at FDJ-Suez, Kopecky is dedicating her consideration towards recapturing one other of biking’s high prizes, the yellow jersey, for her workforce. The versatile rider has already come second on the race, in 2023, and likewise clinched the runner-up spot on the Giro d’Italia Girls in 2024 to show her climbing credentials, however the assorted terrain of the four-stage Vuelta a Burgos from Could 22 to 25 will probably be her first stage-race of this season and first actual check of how she is that this yr progressing towards her mid-season purpose.

“I’m very desperate to race once more,” Kopecky, who final pinned on a quantity at Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes practically a month in the past, stated in a workforce assertion. “I completed the spring with a comparatively optimistic and contemporary feeling. That contemporary feeling was as a result of I have not raced as a lot this season.

“I took per week to let all the pieces sink in mentally after which I instantly jumped again on the bike. In the meantime, I’ve been in Spain for per week now, the place I had a great coaching camp.”

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Kopecky’s Classics block – which included her third win at Tour of Flanders – means she is among the riders freshly leaping again into the fray at Vuelta a Burgos, the third Girls’s World Tour stage race of a Spanish block which has already seen the Vuelta Femenina and Itzulia Girls play out – each received by Vollering. The previous teammate of Kopecky is not going to be lining up at Burgos, nonetheless many different key rivals will.

“The alerts at coaching are fairly optimistic, so we’re going into it freely and can attempt to take advantage of it,” stated Kopecky. “It additionally stays to be seen what situation the riders who rode the Vuelta Femenina are in.”

Vuelta a Burgos begins with a 125km stage with three class 3 climbs on the best way to a end with an uphill run to the road within the final kilometres after which strikes onto a flatter 122km stage 2, though there’s a class 3 climb which tops out 7km from the road which may present a launching level. Stage 3 offers the massive problem of the tour, ending on the Picón Blanco, an hors catégorie (HC) climb of seven.8km at a median gradient of 9%. The general victor will probably be topped after the closing time trial stage on Sunday, a 9.4 km check.

“There’s a little bit of all the pieces and that makes it enjoyable,” stated Kopecky, who final lined up on the occasion in 2022. “The primary two levels is likely to be an opportunity to attain and the time trial ought to go well with me as properly. Within the penultimate stage with the ultimate climb Picón Blanco I’ll primarily see how far I can get. That in itself is a primary good measure with a view to the Tour de France Femmes.”

Kopecky, added that: “It’s considerably a query mark as to how I’ll digest it and that is exactly why it is a good check to see the place I stand on such a tough climb.”

There may be little query mark for the workforce, nonetheless, on the energy of their possibilities within the first two levels as not solely will Kopecky be available however additionally they have the dash velocity of Lorena Wiebes.

“We all know completely what our job entails and have blind religion in one another,” stated Kopecky. “So we’ll see how we’ll play the playing cards.”