GOING DUTCH

At what point does it become a problem that Dutch riders are dominating the Women’s WorldTour? There have been a dozen events in 2021 up to the end of the Tour of Norway, and counting one-day races and stage race GCs, Dutch riders have won 10 of those. The only exceptions so far have been Italian Elisa Longo Borghini’s win at Trofeo Binda and Australian Grace Brown winning De Panne. Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, Marianne Vos, Annemiek van Vleuten, Anna van der Breggen and Demi Vollering have shared all the other race titles between them, though the individual stages in the multi-day races have been more cosmopolitan: a mix of nationalities took stages in Burgos and in Norway.

The Dutch dominance stretches back, however. Six out of seven Tours of Norway held to date were won by riders from the Netherlands; nine of the last 11 Giro Femminiles have gone to the Dutch. The sport has never been so international; at the same time, it has rarely been dominated so much by one nation.