IN- DEPTH: TROFEO ALFREDO BINDA
Procycling looks at the history and culture of women’s cycling’s oldest race
Dating back to 1974, Trofeo Alfredo Binda is the oldest race on the Women's WorldTour calendar. Procycling looks at the history and culture of this well established event, which favours every kind of rider with its varied terrain
For one day every spring, the hill-top village of Orino, near Varese in Lombardia, is the centre of world cycling. The climb up to Orino may be less famous than the Poggio di San Remo, but it is as important to the outcome of the Trofeo Alfredo Binda as the Poggio is to Milan-San Remo. Fewer than a thousand people live here, and the main draw for the handful of tourists who visit is the square fortress of the medieval Rocca di Orino, atop the hill. But on race days, before the pandemic at least, that number swelled considerably, making it Trofeo Binda’s focal point, on a racing and on a visual level.
This early season Women’s WorldTour race, set in a quiet corner of Lombardy, close to Lake Maggiore, is one of the longest running women’s professional races. An attacking race, on a course consisting of undulating loops peppered with sharp climbs, this has the hallmarks of a Primavera Classica. It’s the women’s equivalent of Milan-San Remo, which takes place at roughly the same time of year. Trofeo Binda is typically held the day after San Remo, just a few miles northwest of Milan. While the women’s race does not have 114 years of history like the men’s race, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda could well be deemed the closest women’s cycling has to a monument.
Trofeo Binda was first run in 1974, the culmination of an idea conceived by local sports enthusiast Michèle Binetti, who had noted a new wave of women’s cycle racing in the Varese area in the early 1970s. With events taking place in nearby Morazzone and San Macario, he decided to organise a race of his own in Cittiglio. Binetti called on the help of Bonarovi, a local event organiser, with sponsorship coming thanks to a cycling friend and local lighting manufacturer, Vito Badalin. Then known as Trofeo Lampadari Badalin, it was an important regional event for female racers in northern Italy. In the early days it was held on Easter Monday, which added to the prestige. Being held on a public holiday also meant many people came out to celebrate this festival of women’s cycling.
Around 30 women took the first start line on a rainy Easter Monday in 1974, and Giuseppina Micheloni, a former competitive roller-skater from Merate, near Bergamo, became the first winner. Micheloni had spent three years as a competitive roller skater, but felt she’d achieved all she could on skates. She was already familiar with cycling - part of her training for roller skating races involved riding a bike in the rolling hills near Bergamo.
By the time
Micheloni lined up in Cittiglio, she had already competed in the previous year’s World Championships road race in Barcelona, where she placed 24th, and was training for the upcoming Worlds in Montreal later in 1974.
The leg strength Micheloni had developed first from roller skating and now cycling meant she was able to thrive on the hilly course, which wound its way through the narrow streets of
Cittiglio village. This course profile was in sharp contrast to today’s race, held on wider roads that pass through various surrounding villages.
“The course was around 70km and really tough, even torturous,” Micheloni tells Procycling. “It didn’t leave Cittiglio, which is only a small town, and we were constantly going up and down on narrow streets. It was actually quite dangerous.
“In the 1970s and 80s the sight of a woman on a bicycle was unusual. Women didn’t cycle much because it was deemed a bit masculine, and women would end up with chunky legs. It didn’t bother me as I was used to doing a lot of sport, and I had a lot of support from my family. When people heard a women’s race was taking place it was quite a novelty, and many locals came out to watch us out of curiosity.
“As women’s cycling was just at amateur level we didn’t win any prize money, but I got a nice hamper of local produce for winning.”
BIGGER AND BETTER
Over the years, the race changed its organiser and with that came changes to the race itself. By the 1980s the course had outgrown Cittiglio and broke free, to cover a loop around nearby villages, with the finish line no longer on a small road in front of the church. An upgrade to national status saw a wider field of riders drawn to start, including Italian national champion Maria Canins. A former cross-country skier from the Dolomites and two-time Tour de France Féminin winner, Canins won the race four times between the mid-1980s and early 1990s thanks to her climbing prowess.
“I liked the course because it was very technical,” Canins says. “You would be on the main road, and then you turned onto small, hilly, technical roads, and the finish line was uphill. As a climber, this course suited me; it wasn’t a course for a sprinter. However, on one occasion
I had to outsprint another rival to win. I won 100,000 lire [50 euros] and a lovely trophy. This event was more than a race; it was also a festival attended by the locals in Cittiglio and the nearby towns. It was one of the best races in Italy.”
After a two-year hiatus, the race returned in 1999 with a new organiser, Cycling Sport Promotion, who made further changes, while aiming to keep the traditional festive and community atmosphere that had always been the race’s main draw. The course was lengthened, with multiple loops around the village of Cittiglio, and climbs at Orino and Azzio became more prominent features. As part of the rebranding, the organisers renamed it Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio in honour of the village’s most famous personality, Alfredo Binda, and thus complementing the eponymous museum in the village, dedicated to one of Italy’s most successful racers.
As the race gained more status an increasing number of international competitors chose to make the trip to Italy, with the number of home riders gradually being outnumbered by those from abroad. In 2008, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda gained UCI World Cup status, where the winner would not only win prize money and UCI points, but also a large, custommade glass trophy. Since 2016 the Trofeo Binda has formed part of the Women’s WorldTour series.
Mario Minervino, the director of Cycling Sport Promotion, is proud of putting together such a prestigious race for women, and strives to make this an iconic event in the women’s calendar.
“We work very hard to ensure the safety of the riders and give them the best welcome to Cittiglio,” he says. “One of the best moments for me as an organiser was in 2008 when the Trofeo Binda had its first edition as part of the World Cup. Since then, we have felt even more enthusiastic about organising a high-quality women’s race. It’s really touching each year to see athletes from all over the world come here to race on this hotly contested course.”
“To be successful in a race like the Binda, you need to focus on the technical characteristics, and be a complete rider” Elisa Longo Borghini
The course has continued to change and evolve, and the 2021 edition is planned to be different from the last edition, in 2019. At 142km, the route will be longer, and more challenging, but the constant will be the various loops and climbs, including the ascent to Orino.
It will start near the shores of Lake Varese, on the edge of the Parc Regional Campo dei Fiori, and the antipasto consists of a couple of loops around the start town of Cocquio-Trevisago, with an initial foray up the Orino climb, from Caldano, and a seven per cent tester up to Casalzuigno. A 41km loop including a seven-kilometre ascent to Bedero Valcuvia provides a copious primo close to Lake Lugano, on the tree-covered slopes of the Campo dei Fiori. The secondo is even bigger, with four 17.8km loops that include ramps at Casalzuingo plus the decisive Orino climb. After dropping down into Genomio the riders can finish with a dolce as they race to glory on a slightly uphill run into Cittiglio along the via Valcuvia.
Such varied terrain means that different types of rider can win. The only thing that most recent winners have in common is that they have little in common - sprinters, climbers and allrounders have won here, making it one of the most open events of the season.
Perhaps few riders understand the Trofeo Alfredo Binda better than 2013 winner Elisa Longo Borghini, who lives on the opposite side of Lake Maggiore from Cittiglio. “To be successful in a race like the Binda, you need to focus on the technical characteristics, and be a complete rider,” she says. “It's a tough race, but not so tough that there is automatically a select group in the final. Therefore, if you want to win, you have to be able to handle a bunch sprint. This year sees a substantial change to the route. However, the final circuits will be the same and therefore a strong rider with a fast sprint is the ideal candidate for the win.”
Canyon-Sram’s Alena Amialiusik has raced the Trofeo Alfredo Binda every year since 2012, and has achieved four topfive finishes and a high point of third in 2014. “I like this race because it is hard and always intense. There isn’t a moment where you can rest, as it is just full gas the whole time,” she says.
“The hardest part is the last climb before the finish. It’s always fast, with everyone giving their all before the route goes downhill back to Cittiglio. On every lap of this climb everyone goes really hard as someone tries to break away.”
The Orino climb comes in three steps in which the gradient gets steep, then levels off before increasing in steepness again and levelling off, and doing so a final time up to the summit. It’s on each of the ‘steps’ where crowds have gathered in previous years, with many packed in at the top.
It was here on the Orino in 2018, in the cold pouring rain, that Amialiusik’s team-mate Kasia Niewiadoma made her move, after the Belarusian - who had spent over 30km in the breakaway - was reeled in by the bunch. Niewiadoma went on to win the race.
“This is not specifically for sprinters or climbers. Anyone can win it,” she says. “With every year you have a different scenario. It’s very unpredictable.
Normally we start super fast with high speeds during the first 50k. Everyone is trying to split the group, though it’s not always possible to do that.”
Indeed, in some years not even the repeated attacks in the early part of the race or on the famous Orino climb have been enough to allow a sustained breakaway, and the race has been won from a group sprint. Such was the case in 2017 when Coryn Rivera won from a group of just under 30.
The only thing that is predictable about Trofeo Binda, then, is its unpredictability. Plus, of course, the climb to Orino. It has been a regular feature on the course since the days when Canins first raced it, and the final ascent, 10km before the finish, is where the sparks really fly. The Orino is the Trofeo Binda’s Poggio di San Remo, its Madonna del Ghisallo, or its Muur van Geraardsbergen.
Although the average gradient is not so steep, at 3.9 per cent for 4km, tackling it at speed and multiple times becomes draining, particularly after all the hills that precede it, and particularly on the steeper sections. In fact, Orino will be climbed no fewer than six times on the new course in 2021, including from the more challenging side at Azzio. This new, harder percorso was due to debut in 2020, but sadly, the coronavirus pandemic led to the race being cancelled.
According to Niewiadoma, the realities of the pandemic could lead to more frantic racing. She forecasts, “People don’t know how much longer they will be racing for because corona may stop things. So the racing could be even more aggressive as they may treat every race like their last one. The Binda is already an attacking, unpredictable race. This year it will be even more so.”
“The hardest part is the last climb. It’s always fast, with everyone giving their all before the route goes downhill back to Cittiglio” Alena Amialiusik