The 2026 season is well underway, with two Women’s WorldTour races already completed, the Tour Down Under and the UAE Tour.
As the racing switches to Europe, it’s time to look at the teams, the key riders, and the races to watch across an engrossing season. Everything is building up to a fifth Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in August, but there is so much more before then.
Teams
AG Insurance-Soudal
Belgium
2025 WorldTour wins: 5
Team leaders: Kim Le Court and Sarah Gigante
Team boss: Jurgen Foré
Raison d’être: Providing a solid platform for Le Court and Gigante to fly from
(Image credit: Getty Images)
This was a winter of continuity for AG Insurance-Soudal, with two riders leaving and only one, Letizia Borghesi, joining. It means 2026 looks very similar to 2025, but with the hindsight of what happened last season, we can expect them to deliver more regularly.
Kim Le Court was far from an unknown, having won a stage of the Giro d’Italia Women in 2024, but last year was her breakout, with wins at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour of Britain Women and, the biggest, the Tour de France Femmes. Her teammate Sarah Gigante finished on the podium at the Giro and sixth at the Tour.
This pair will continue to lead the team, alongside Urška Žigart and Justine Ghekiere, both of whom have big results in them.
Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto
Germany
2025 WorldTour wins: 2
Team leader: Kasia Niewiadoma Phinney
Team boss: Ronny Lauke
Raison d’etre: Challenge again for the top step of the Tour de France Femmes
(Image credit: Getty Images)
It was always going to be a big ask for Kasia Niewiadoma to defend her Tour de France Femmes title in 2025, especially with the return of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot at Visma-Lease a Bike and renewed hunger of Demi Vollering at FDJ-SUEZ, so to hold on to the final podium place in the end felt like a job well done. Never one to settle, the Polish rider and her team will be hoping to win back the yellow jersey this summer, but also pick up a few more victories along the way.
Although Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto won 15 times last season – their highest tally since 2019, and a marked improvement from six in 2024 – only two of those victories came on the WorldTour: one thanks to Chloé Dygert at the Tour Down Under, and the other signed by Zoe Bäckstedt at the Simac Ladies Tour.
The team will no doubt call on the two time trial sensations again in 2026. Already, Dygert has come out with fighting talk. “I’m sick of losing,” she said ahead of January’s Tour Down Under, “so this year, I’m really focusing on making sure it doesn’t happen much.” Unfortunately for the American, she left Australia with 12 stitches in her leg, and is now eyeing a period of recovery before the Classics.
There have been no new signings at Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto over the winter, and only two outgoings: Tour stage winner Ricarda Bauernfiend has found a new home at Lidl-Trek, while former British champion Alice Towers has moved to EF Education-Oatly. The effervescent Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and budding climber Neve Bradbury remain among the most exciting riders in the team. Italian sprinter Chiara Consonni will be there for the flatter days.
EF Education-Oatly
USA
2025 WorldTour wins: 2
Team leader: Noemi Rüegg and Cédrine Kerbaol
Team boss: Esra Tromp
Raison d’être: Keeping the good vibes going at a young team full of talent
(Image credit: Getty Images)
New to the Women’s WorldTour, EF Education-Oatly had the perfect start to their season, by winning the Tour Down Under for the second year in a row through Noemi Rüegg.
However, those were the team’s last WorldTour victories in 2025, so it is a low bar to clear for this season. In Rüegg and Cédrine Kerbaol they have two riders who were often at the front of races last year. The team stand out in pink, and also because they have the rainbow jersey, through Magdeleine Vallieres.
Kristen Faulkner, Olympic champion, will want more than her one win last year, while there has been an injection of youth to keep the American squad ticking over. No more Alison Jackson.
FDJ United-Suez
France
2025 WorldTour wins: 11
Team leader: Demi Vollering
Team boss: Stephen Delcourt
Raison d’être: To win the Tour de France Femmes and remain the world’s top-ranked team
(Image credit: Getty Images)
When the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift was first announced, team manager Stephen Delcourt dreamed of winning it, building the team with that ambition in the front of his mind. Only six years ago the team was one of the also-ran squads, but since Évita Muzic won the closing stage of the 2020 Giro Rosa, their first WorldTour win, they’ve been on the rise. Last season they brought in defending Tour champion Demi Vollering hoping the yellow jersey ambition might be realised but, while she came close, second place was all the team could manage.
FDJ dominated the first half of last season. Vollering quickly repaid Delcourt’s faith, blossoming into a fine leader, starting the year with victory in the four-day Comunitat Velenciana, then winning Strade Bianche, the Vuelta Femenina, Itzulia Women and the Volta Catalunya. They were far from a one-woman band; fellow new recruit Elise Chabbey and Ally Wollaston contributed multiple victories, helping the French team to top spot in the UCI rankings.
That said, they have fewer riders this year, but have recruited well, with German champion Frazinska Koch the pick of the new additions. A hugely versatile Classics rider and domestique, she will contribute widely, while Eva van Agt is a proven helper and Sofia Bertizzolo has been a target for the team for years now. It will be interesting to see how Scotswoman Lauren Dickson fares in only her third year in the sport. The signs are promising: she finished 17th on GC at the recent Tour Down Under, helping Wollaston to two stage wins and brilliant team performance.
Fenix-Premier Tech
Belgium
2025 WorldTour wins: 1
Team leader: Puck Pieterse
Team boss: Philip Roodhooft
Raison d’être: Big Classics victories
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Fenix-Premier Tech are among the minority of Women’s WorldTour teams to have more riders this year than last, starting 2026 with 19 of the permitted 22 riders. An interesting mix of cyclo-cross and Classics riders, they have never been prolific winners. Last season they took only five, though three of those were national championships.
When they do win, they win big, with stages in the Tour de France Femmes on the team palmarès. The hugely talented and versatile Puck Pieterse is always among the action, finishing in the top 10 in every one of last year’s spring Classics and winning La Flèche Wallonne. Charlotte Kool joined the squad mid-season last year and should she regain her mojo will provide genuine winning potential in the sprints.
Lidl-Trek
Germany
2025 WorldTour wins: 5
Team leader: Elisa Balsamo and Niamh Fisher-Black
Team boss: Luca Guercilena
Raison d’être: Getting the big signings to deliver
(Image credit: Getty Images)
There’s a lot of talent stockpiled at Lidl-Trek, and getting it to fire is the main goal of the team for 2026. Ellen van Dijk and Lizzie Deignan retiring could have unbalanced another team, but this one was prepared for this eventuality already, making the big changes ahead of 2025. As it is, the German squad’s signings this winter have largely been dealing with domestique reorganisation, and providing some experience to a developing roster.
Last season saw success through the year, although perhaps not quite at the level that was expected, with fewer WorldTour wins than 2024. However, there were stage victories at the Vuelta España Femenina and the Giro d’Italia Women, with Anna Henderson’s result in the latter perhaps spurring her on to more consistent success, and Elisa Balsamo won the Trofeo Alfredo Binda.
Niamh Fisher-Black and Riejanne Markus, both signed as general classification options, performed impressively at stage races, with Fisher-Black fifth at the Tour de France Femmes and sixth at the Vuelta. This year, they will aim to cement their places in the top five at WorldTour stage events, especially the Grand Tours. Fisher-Black has a lot of promise, and is still only 25, so one feels that there is a breakout performance still to come.
In the Classics, Balsamo has the abilities to overcome almost anyone, therefore just needs the race to fall in her favour, while she will be ably backed up by Clara Copponi, Emma Norsgaard, Shirin van Anrooij and Henderson, which has the makings of a pretty good collection of leaders for the chaos of one-day racing. The team still has four 20-year-olds, too, including Isabella Holmgren, who finished eight at last year’s Giro, so there is a lot of hope for the future.
Movistar
Spain
2025 WorldTour wins: 10
Team leader: Marlen Reusser
Team boss: Sebastián Unzué
Raison d’etre: Win regularly and develop young talent
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Only four teams won more races than Movistar in 2025 – SD Worx-Protime, UAE Team ADQ, FDJ-SUEZ and Visma-Lease a Bike – putting the Spanish squad just outside of the realm of the super-teams. Of Movistar’s 10 victories at WorldTour level, seven came courtesy of the world time trial champion Marlen Reusser. And that doesn’t account for the Swiss rider’s status as one of the peloton’s best GC contenders; she finished runner-up at both the Vuelta Femenina and the Giro last year.
Movistar will also look to British prodigy Cat Ferguson for wins in 2026, one of a handful of talented teenagers in the squad. The youngest is Spaniard Paula Ostiz, the junior world and European road champion, who turned pro this year.
Picnic PostNL
Netherlands
2025 WorldTour wins: 1
Team leader: Pfeiffer Georgi
Team boss: Iwan Spekenbrink
Raison d’etre: A team in transition, with a host of young riders on board
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Nine riders left Picnic PostNL over the winter, and eight came in, underlining how in transition this team is. Some of those who left will be missed badly: Charlotte Kool, Francesca Barale, Franzi Koch, Megan Jastrab and Nienke Vinke. It leaves a young, callow squad, which will hope to outperform low expectations.
They hit the ground running at the Tour Down Under, with two podiums and 12th place overall for Josie Nelson, but the Classics will be the place where the squad can really show their mettle. Pfeiffer Georgi had a quiet 2025, as she worked her way back from the concussion she suffered at the Tour de France Femmes a couple of years ago, and will be looking to show that she is still a contender.
SD Worx-Protime
Netherlands
2025 WorldTour wins: 27
Team leaders: Lotte Kopecky, Anna van der Breggen and Lorena Wiebes
Team boss: Erwin Janssen
Raison d’être: Retaking their number one ranking after a slight dip
(Image credit: Getty Images)
This year represents a new challenge for the previously all-conquering SD Worx-Protime. Instead of coming into the season as the number one team, the one everyone wanted to beat, they are now number two, chasing FDJ United-SUEZ, and their former charge Vollering.
That’s not to say 2025 was a fallow year for the Dutch squad, with 48 wins across the year, including 25 wins for Lorena Wiebes, who appears unbeatable in sprints. Wiebes won through the year, from the UAE Tour onwards, taking two stage wins at both the Giro d’Italia Women and the Tour de France Femmes. Meanwhile, Lotte Kopecky won the Tour of Flanders, again, and Anna van der Breggen and Mischa Bredewold showed themselves in flashes.
However, Kopecky did have an off-year, due to knee and lower-back issues, and her tilt at Tour GC failed to materialise. Also, in the absence of Vollering, they only won one general classification title. This might be a continued trend, with a group of developing riders not quite there yet, although Van der Breggen did finish third at last year’s Vuelta España Femenina.
Expect Wiebes to keep winning, wherever she races, and Kopecky to go all in for the Classics, from Omloop Nieuwsblad onwards. Ultimately, SD Worx want to be the team that everyone watches in the peloton again, and be back to the space where they can bend races to their will. They do not have the same number of dominant riders as before, but they do have the right pieces for the right races. New signing Nienke Vinke could be the future for GC challenges, and Bredewold can continue to do her very good Vollering impression in hillier one-day races.
UAE Team ADQ
UAE
2025 WorldTour wins: 7
Team leader: Elisa Longo Borghini
Team boss: Yana Seel
Raison d’être: Defence of Elisa Longo Borghini’s Giro title and a Tour de France Femmes podium finish
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Building year on year, UAE Team ADQ are now among the most dangerous teams in the peloton. The addition of Elisa Longo Borghini last year has proved pivotal. Though they’ve only existed in their current form since 2022, the team dates all the way back to Nicole Cooke’s Mcipollini-Giordana team of 2011. Last year’s crop of 28 wins represented their most successful season, the winning shared among a remarkable 13 of their 19-woman roster.
2025 Tour de France Femmes revelation Maeva Squiban, along with Karlijn Swinkels, have already opened the team’s account, winning in Mallorca last week. While they’re one of the few teams to have increased the size of their roster, we can expect Longo Borghini to be most influential again.
Visma-Lease a Bike
Netherlands
2025 WorldTour wins: 7
Team leader: Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Marianne Vos
Team boss: Rutger Tijssen
Raison d’être: Another Tour de France title for Pauline Ferrand Prévot and big Classics wins for Marianne Vos
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Even without Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s Tour de France Femmes victory, Visma-Lease a Bike had a great 2025, winning more races than in any of their four previous seasons while relying less on their big names. Martina Fidanza stepped up with three wins, and Ninke Veenhoven bagged two. The future lies with two young riders: the hugely talented Brit Imogen Wolff, who began winning before her 19th birthday, and Marion Bunel, who is already among the best climbers in the bunch aged only 21.
Ferrand-Prévot has a freakish ability to successfully target races, so another Tour de France win is possible. Meanwhile, Marianne Vos always bags at least one big win a year. Add in Canadian all-rounder Sarah Van Dam and Dutch rouleur Daniek Hengeveld and Visma have a recipe for success.
Uno-X Mobility, Liv AlUla Jayco and Human Powered Health
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Uno-X Mobility won just one WorldTour race last year, a stage of the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas through Mie Bjørndal Ottestad, who won four more races for the team. This year, they are likely to continue their aggressive underdog strategy, which has brought them success in the past. In Katrine Aalerud, they have an experienced GC leader.
2025 ended well for Liv AlUla Jayco, who won two stages at the Tour of Chongming Island; they also won stage two of the Tour de France Femmes through Mavi García. This year, they will hope that they can return to the front of races more often, through Letizia Paternoster and Ruby Roseman-Gannon, among others.
Human Powered Health will aim to be more than just the 14th WorldTour team, with a ProTour or WorldTour victory surely among their plans. In Thalita de Jong and Kathrin Schweinberger, they have experienced riders who could surprise.
Races
Spring Classics
(Image credit: Getty Images)
From Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (28 Feb) until Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes (26 April), the women’s Spring Classics season follows an almost identical rhythm to that of the men’s, with female ‘siblings’ having been introduced for nearly all of the original major men’s races. The inauguration of Milan-San Remo Donne (21 March) last season – won by Lorena Wiebes – leaves E3 Saxo Classic as the only men’s WorldTour race with no equivalent. Omloop and Opening Weekend is followed in March by Italy’s Strade Bianche, San Remo, and a pair of new names: In Flanders Fields. From Middelkerke to Wevelgem (formerly the more succinct Gent-Wevelgem) and the Tour of Bruges (formerly Brugge-De Panne).
There is also the Trofeo Alfredo Binda (15 March), one of the oldest Classics on the women’s calendar with more than 50 years of history.
As with the men, the women’s Classics tends to centre around the Tour of Flanders (5 April) and Paris-Roubaix (12 April), but some of the stronger climbers will target the hilly Ardennes races – Amstel Gold (19 April), Flèche Wallonne (22 April) and Liège.
Vuelta España Femenina by carrefour.es – 3-10 May
(Image credit: Getty Images)
With the women’s season rejigged to free the Giro d’Italia Women from its annual clash with the men’s Tour de France, there is now a decent gap between the three Grand Tours, opening up the possibility of seeing all of the world’s best riders in all three. The season is packed, though, especially in May when the Vuelta is the first of three Spanish WorldTour stage races, and with teams having such small rosters it’s more likely teams will need to be very choosy when selecting their squads.
In its short history as a stage race, the Vuelta Femenina has always attracted the pick of the stage racing bunch, and that is unlikely to change this season. Not many riders have confirmed their programmes beyond the Classics and the Tour de France Femmes so far, but last year’s runner-up Marlen Reusser is down to ride, and don’t be surprised defending champion Demi Vollering here either.
Tour de France Femmes – 1-9 August
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift begins slowly with two flattish stages, before the temperature gradually rises. A series of hilly stages are punctuated by an individual time trial, before the pièce de resistance, Mont Ventoux. After Planche des Belles Filles, the Tourmalet, Alpe d’Huez and the Madeleine comes the Giant of Provence. The bald mountain will surely hint at the direction of the fifth yellow jersey, but there is still a hectic stage around Nice to come, like a turbo-charged final day of Paris-Nice. Four ascents of the Col d’Eze will sort out the wheat from the chaff.
Demi Vollering will be itching to take back the crown she lost in 2024, and prove that she really is the best rider in the world; FDJ United-SUEZ will also demand better from their star signing. However, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has proved that she will go to huge lengths to win, and will have the French public on her side. It should be a clash for the ages. From Switzerland to the Mediterranean, the action will not stop.
