Recent seasons of the Women's WorldTour have often been characterised by a single dominant force, be it an individual like Annemiek van Vleuten, or a team like SD Worx. Not so 2024. This year there were several standout performers, with all of the major prizes being shared around a varied crop of riders — some expected, others less so. Take the Grand Tours, which were won by three different riders; or the Olympics and Worlds, where the 12 medals on offer were shared between eight different individuals.
As such, there were many star performers to choose from in 2024, so much so that it’s difficult to narrow down to just 10. Failing to make the cut were Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Chiara Consonni (UAE Team ADQ), despite their success in the sprints; Juliette Labous (FDJ Suez), Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM) and Riejanne Markus (Visma-Lease a Bike), despite their high finishes in the Grand Tours; top Classics competitors Shiriin Van Anrooij (Lidl-Trek) and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck); top stage race star Évita Muzic (FDJ Suez); and breakthrough talent Cédrine Kerbaol (Ceratzit-WNT).
Instead, here are the top 10 riders we’ve picked as our best for the 2024 season.
10. Pauliena Rooijakkers
While she didn’t quite manage to win a race in 2024, by finishing third at the Tour de France Femmes and fourth at the Giro d’Italia, Pauliena Rooijakkers (Alpecin-Fenix) can boast the distinction of being the only rider to place in the top five at both those races, and one of only two (along with Juliette Labous) to make the top 10 in all three Grand Tours. Such results reflect her consistency, as well as her relishing of the high mountain passes that are becoming more common in women's cycling — especially the second place on Alpe d'Huez behind Demi Vollering, en route to her podium finish at the Tour.
9. Elisa Balsamo
The spring saw Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) rediscover her very best legs, regaining her titles from two years ago at both Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Brugge-De Panne from two years ago, as well as registering very impressive runner-up finishes at Paris-Roubaix and Gent-Wevelgem. Her momentum was halted by a bad crash in May, and seemed to hold her back during the Olympics, but she returned to form in autumn to claim her fifth victory of the season on the opening stage of the Tour de Romandie, as well as silver at the European Championships. Her combination of sprinting speed and knack for the Classics continue to make her one of the world’s best.
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8. Kristen Faulkner
For the second consecutive Olympic Games, the road gold medal went to an unlikely candidate in the shape of American Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale), a result that alone makes her one of the standout riders of 2024. But she wasn’t just a one-hit wonder; on top of Olympic gold, she also won five other races. Given her successes earlier in the year (most notably a stage win at the Vuelta, which she pulled off with a late solo attack similar to the one that saw her earn gold in Paris), perhaps her rivals should have more attentive to her threat when she slipped clear for what turned out to be the Olympic title-winning move.
7. Marianne Vos
Even after all this time racing as the widely regarded greatest of all time, Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) was in 2024 still able to target and conquer new frontiers, adding the classics Omloop Het Niuwsblad and Dwars door Vlaanderen plus the Gravel World Championships title to her palmarès. She was generally prolific throughout the year, winning eight times in total (only three riders won more), and, as is her wont, rose to the biggest occasions; though she did pass through the all-important Olympics / Tour de France part of the year winless, silver medal at the former and a regaining of her points classification at the latter still constitutes a significant success.
6. Lorena Wiebes
Having lost a smidgen of her top speed last year, Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx) returned to her old unstoppable self in the sprints this year, her overall return of 23 wins matching her career-best tally from 2022. The majority of those came at WorldTour level, too, including multiple stage hauls at races like the UAE Tour, RideLondon and the Simac Ladies Tour, plus the major one-day races like Gent-Wevelgem, Ronde van Drenthe and the European Championships. The only disappointments were her failure to win a stage at the Tour de France Femmes and to stay in contention at the Olympics road race, but there’s simply nobody who can even get near to Wiebes in terms of sheer number of wins.
5. Demi Vollering
For a run of races in the months of May and June, Demi Vollering had the same aura of invisibility that had made her the top rider in the 2023 season. It was during this time that she amassed 12 of her eventual total of 15 season wins (the third highest in the peloton), including an unbroken streak of overall titles at the Vuelta Femenina, Itzulia Basque Country, Vuelta a Burgos and Tour de Suisse. In the races both before and after, however, she fell short of her major targets, not managing better than podium finishes at Classics like Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège during the spring, and narrowly losing out to Kasia Niewiadoma at her Tour de France defence. For all her victories, it was therefore a mixed and frustrating year for the Dutchwoman, which ends with a tense departure from SD Worx.
4. Kasia Niewiadoma
From serial bridesmaid to champion of arguably the biggest prize in cycling, 2024 was the year that Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) at long last delivered on her potential and returned the kind of result worthy of her talent. Whatever happens during the rest of her career, she will now always be a champion of the Tour de France, and though runner-up Demi Vollering was left lamenting the game-changing crash that swung the race in the Pole’s favour, there can still be no denying the skill, fortitude and exceptional riding she produced to earn that title. In addition, she continued to be one of the top performers in the Classics, achieving top fives at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Strade Bianche, a runner-up spot at the Tour of Flanders, plus a duck-breaking victory at Flèche Wallonne that paved the way for her Tour de France triumph.
3. Grace Brown
Rarely, if ever, has a rider shown such extraordinary improvement in their final year of racing as Grace Brown (FD-Suez) did in 2024. In a case of impeccable timing, the Australian rose to become the best time trialist in the world just in time for the climax of the Olympic cycle, thus completing an Olympic / Worlds double gold having never before won a senior international title before. Those were two of four time trial wins in the season, and eight in total, including Liège-Bastogne-Liège no less — another first in Brown’s career, in this case Monument victory.
2. Elisa Longo Borghini
From the lows of her troubled 2023 season, which was blighted by a series of health and injury problems, Elisa Longo Borghini bounced back for what was the best year of her illustrious career to date. She began the year as one of the star riders of the classics, where the Tour of Flanders was the best of three wins, amid a host of podium finishes in esteemed races such as Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Flèche Wallonne. Then followed her year’s crowning achievement — the Giro d’Italia, her home Grand Tour that had eluded her for over a decade. Add to that GC podium finishes at the Vuelta and Tour de Suisse, plus a Worlds bronze medal in Zurich, and only one rider could claim they had a better 2024.
1. Lotte Kopecky
Doing justice to the rainbow jersey she won in Glasgow last year, Lotte Kopecky was the outstanding rider of the 2024 season. She reigned supreme in one-day races, achieving a hitherto unprecedented treble of three of the most prestigious races: Strade Bianche, a defence of her World Championships title, and a much hoped-for first-ever Paris-Roubaix title.
What really set 2024 apart from her previous successful campaigns was her success in stage races. In total she won overall titles at four WorldTour races; the UAE Tour, Tour of Britain, Tour de Romandie and Simac Ladies Tour, and even tamed the high mountains at the Giro d’Italia to claim second overall. It was this all-round excellence that saw her go clear of teammate Demi Vollering as the best rider in the world, and was enough to convince SD Worx that they could afford to let Vollering go and depend on the Belgian to be leader of both Classics and stage races.
Cover image by Getty Images
