In 2024, SD Worx-Protime further tightened the iron grip they hold over the peloton. They were the favourites for almost every race they participated in, and more often than not succeeded. The formidable trio of Lorena Wiebes, Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky contributed alone over half a century of wins, comfortably more than the next best team.
Yet for all their success, the team didn't have it all their own way. In fact, many of the biggest races of the year went to riders from different teams – Kasia Niewiadoma of Canyon//SRAM won the Tour de France Femmes; Elisa Longo Borghini of Lidl-Trek won the Giro d’Italia Women and Tour of Flanders; Grace Brown of FDJ-Suez and Australia won Liège-Bastogne-Liège and World and Olympic time trial gold: and Kristen Faulkner of EF-Oatly-Cannondale and USA was Olympic champion.
Other teams had to scramble in smaller races for their share of the spoils, but it was a competitive season throughout, with notable strength-in-depth in the Women's WorldTour. Rouleur considers how satisfied each team will be with their 2024.
AG INSURANCE-SOUDAL TEAM - 7/10
Participating as a WorldTour team for the first time, AG Insurance-Soudal punched well above their weight in 2024, even with their star rider Ashleigh Moolman Pasio missing a fair chunk of it through injury. The highlight was Justine Ghekiere’s stage win at the Tour de France Femmes while wearing (and also winning) the polka-dot jersey, while new signing Sarah Gigante also starred with seventh overall at that race and overall victory at the Tour Down Under, and Kim Le Cort won a stage at the Giro.
CANYON//SRAM - 8/10
Canyon//SRAM might have only won six races in 2024, but that hardly matters when one of them was the yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes. That result from Kasia Niewiadoma has long been in the making for both her and the team, and she also brought them another victory at Flèche Wallonne, as well as coming agonisingly close at the Tour of Flanders. Elsewhere, 22-year-old Neve Bradbury broke through with podium finishes and stages wins at both the Giro d’Italia Women and Tour de Suisse, Chloe Dygert won two World and one Olympic medal, and Zoe Bäckstedt won her first professional race at the Simac Ladies Tour.
Kasia Niewiadoma in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes (Image by Tornanti.cc)
CERATIZIT-WNT PRO CYCLING TEAM - 6/10
The ten-year-old Ceratizit-WNT team’s first season in the WorldTour saw a healthy return of fifteen wins, and they looked every bit as though they belonged at this level. Cédrine Kerbaol was their star rider, contributing five of those fifteen wins, most notably a stage at the Tour de France Femmes, where she also placed sixth overall.
TEAM DSM-FIRMENICH POSTNL - 4/10
Following all of their sprinting and Classics success last year, 2024 was a bit of a comedown for the Dutch outfit. Charlotte Kool had an especially frustrating time, winning only three times (down from 13 last year) and placing runner-up no less than nine times — on seven of those occasions behind former teammate and current nemesis Lorena Wiebes. Two of those wins did come at the Tour de France Femmes though, while Juliette Labous was typically consistent in the stage races (placing between third and sixth at five WorldTour events), while third place at Paris-Roubaix was the best of Pfeiffer Georgi’s many Classics high finishes.
Charlotte Kool in a head-to-head battle with sprint rival Lorena Wiebes at the Tour de France Femmes (Image by Tornanti.cc)
FDJ-SUEZ - 7/10
With victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and a time trial gold double up at both the Olympics and Worlds representing Australia, this was Grace Brown’s year, although FDJ-Suez won’t bear the fruit of seeing their sponsorship on the rainbow jersey next year and she has announced her retirement. Her red-hot form made up for the below-par Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig; as did Évita Muzic’s consistent form, which brought top five finishes at the Tour de France Femmes, Vuelta a España Femenina and Flèche Wallonne.
FENIX-DECEUNINCK - 4/10
2024 was defined by frustrating near misses for Fenix-Deceuninck, who merited more than the lowly two wins they ended with. The prodigious Puck Pieterse delivered one of those at the Tour de France Femmes, and starred alongside Christina Schweinberger and Yara Kastelijn during the spring Classics with podium finishes at Ronde van Drenthe and Trofeo Alfredo Binda, while Pauliena Rooijakkers was one of the outstanding stage racers of the season with third at the Tour de France Femmes and fourth at the Giro d’Italia Women.
Puck Pieterse had an impressive Tour this year (Image by Tornanti.cc)
HUMAN POWERED HEALTH - 3/10
There were more near misses than wins in 2024 for one of the WorldTour’s less visible teams, Human Powered Health. On only seven occasions did they make the top step of the podium, but that could have been more had Ruth Edwards had a little bit more to convert her two Giro d’Italia Women runner-up finishes into victories, or Daria Pikulik, her multiple podium finishes in the northern Classics.
LIDL-TREK - 8/10
In one day, Lidl-Trek managed to compete toe-to-toe with great rivals SD Worx, placing a rider on the podium in ten of the eleven WorldTour spring Classics, including victories at the Tour of Flanders for Elisa Longo Borghini and Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Brugge-De Panne for Elisa Balsamo. They didn’t fare quite so well in stage races, but Borghini’s overall triumph at the Giro d’Italia Women — both her and the team’s first at that race — was arguably the highlight of the season.
Elisa Longo Borghini and Lidl-Trek had a superb spring (Image by SWpix.com)
LIV ALULA JAYCO - 5/10
The merger of Team Jayco and Liv Racing had the desired effect for both teams, vastly improving on the three wins they managed between them last year to register thirteen in 2024. That stat is less impressive when you consider that seven came from national championships, and only one (a Tour of Britain stage from Ruby Roseman-Gannon) at WorldTour level; but also obscures how impressively consistent they were, with top five finishes in many top stage races (including the UAE Tour, Itzulia Basque Country and Tour de Romandie from Mavi García) and in Classics like Amstel Gold and Ronde van Drenthe.
MOVISTAR - 3/10
The first season of the post-Annemiek van Vleuten era was always going to be a tough time for Movistar. With that in mind, fifteen wins was a decent return, even if Liane Lippert’s stage win at the Giro d’Italia Women was the only one to come at WorldTour level. Lippert is now their leading rider, but Van Vleuten’s shoes are impossible for anyone alone to fill, and the likes of her, Olivia Baril, Arlenis Sierra and exciting talent Cat Ferguson could only partially fill the void left by the Dutchwoman.
Liane Lippert during the Tour de France Femmes (Image by Tornanti.cc)
ROLAND - 2/10
Cycling fans outside of El Salvador, where the team registered the only seven of its thirteen wins that weren’t at national championships, might be forgiven for not realising that Roland are in the WorldTour. Their red jerseys weren’t spotted much all year, with neither Tamara Dronova-Balabolina nor Anna Kiesenhofer repeating their success of previous years.
SD WORX-PROTIME - 10/10
Surpassing even last year’s enormous tally of 62 wins, this was the most prolific year yet in the illustrious history of SD Worx. Narrowly missing out on both the Giro d’Italia Women and Tour de France Femmes prevented this from being a perfect year, but there were countless big wins, from Lorena Wiebes at Gent-Wevelgem, Ronde van Drenthe and many more sprints, to Demi Vollering at the Vuelta a España Femenina, Itzulia Basque Country and the Tour de Suisse, to the star rider and reigning world champion Lotte Kopecky at Paris-Roubaix, Strade Bianche and multiple stage race titles.
Lotte Kopecky on her way to winning the 2024 edition of Paris-Roubaix (Image by SWpix.com)
TEAM VISMA-LEASE A BIKE - 7/10
A return to winning ways for Marianne Vos in the Classics saw Visma-Lease a Bike enjoy a bountiful spring, the Dutchwoman winning at Amstel Gold, Dwars door Vlaanderen and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, before going on to win a couple of stages at the Vuelta a España Femenina. Riejanne Markus also placed second overall in the latter race, one of the team’s two impressive high-profile runner-up GC finishes along with Anna Henderson at the Tour of Britain, while Vos (road race silver) and Henderson (time trial silver) all had success representing their nations at the Olympics.
UAE TEAM ADQ - 6/10
With last year’s star performers Silvia Persico and Erica Magnaldi falling short of the best form, UAE Team ADQ laboured for results this year. Chiara Consonni’s stage win at the Giro d’Italia Women was the only one of their twelve wins to come at WorldTour level, though Karlijn Swinkels did well to step up and deliver top six finishes at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Vuelta a Burgos and Simac Ladies Tour.
Sofia Bertizzolo won the points classification the Tour Down Under (Image by SWpix.com)
