As Women’s WorldTour racing kicks off in Europe, here’s what stood out at Omloop Nieuwsblad and Omloop van het Hageland.
The Spring Classics are officially upon us. This past weekend, the world’s best one-day riders descended upon Belgium for ‘Opening Weekend’ – two days of high-quality racing that set the stage for the bigger Classics ahead.
The wonderful Kit Nicholson has already shared some takeaways from the men’s Opening Weekend – Omloop Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne – and pulled together a photo gallery showing the weekend in all its rain-soaked glory. Right now though, it’s time to take a look at the two women’s races that made up opening weekend – Omloop Nieuwsblad and the Fenix-Ekoï Omloop van het Hageland – and what we can learn from them as we move forward.
Omloop Nieuwsblad
Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) came in as the rider to beat at the season’s first WorldTour race in Europe, and she well and truly lived up to that billing. Here are some of the key takeaways from the hilly, cobbled semi-Classic.
It’s hard to fault Demi Vollering’s start to 2026
The Dutchwoman has won a lot of races in her career, but until this past weekend, Omloop Nieuwsblad wasn’t one of them. She’d been close in the past – second in 2022 and third last year – but with victory on Saturday she ticks another race off the ever-diminishing list of big one-days that she’s yet to win.
Vollering made her decisive move on the iconic Muur-Kapelmuur climb and quickly showed she was the strongest climber in the race. And with only Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) for company in the final 15 km, the European champ was almost assured to take the win if the pair could stay away.
Vollering’s ‘zen’ celebration at the finish line was rather at odds with the way she yelled at Niewiadoma-Phinney in the final kilometres, but it’s hard to argue with the way she’s started the year. Her only race before this was the Volta Valenciana which she won overall with two stage wins from three days, and winning ‘the Omloop’ for the first time makes for a terrific start to her Spring Classics campaign.
You might recall that Vollering is taking a different approach to the 2026 season – fewer races, plus a return to the Giro – and it will be intriguing to see whether that pays dividends later in the season. She’ll be among the favourites in all of the Classics she starts (Strade Bianche is up next, this coming Saturday), but the big question is whether a reduced racing calendar will help her improve on last year’s second overall at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, after illness and a lack of freshness apparently impacted her campaign.
Franzi Koch has already justified her signing at FDJ United-Suez
German champ Franzi Koch joined FDJ United-Suez at the start of this year and boy did she impress on Saturday – her first one-day race with the team. I wrote above that Vollering made her winning move on the Muur-Kapelmuur and while that’s true, it was Koch’s lead-out that made Vollering’s move possible.
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