Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday, 25 February, marks the first Women’s World Tour race in Europe, following the calendar start in Australia and UAE. The roster for CANYON//SRAM Racing will be Shari Bossuyt, Kasia Niewiadoma, Soraya Paladin, Alice Towers and Maike van der Duin.

Starting in Gent and finishing in Ninove, the 132km race covers eight climbs and five cobblestone sectors. The Molenberg climb returns to the parcours this year. The established trio of climbs—Elverenberg-Vossenhol, Muur-Kapelmuur, Bosberg—come within 15km of each other, a mere 12km before the finish line.

It will be the first race in 2023 for Kasia and the first time Maike races in her new team colours of CANYON//SRAM Racing.

Maike says, “I’m excited for the coming weekend. The season opener for me but also my first race with the team. We have a strong team and are ready to fight!”

Kasia talks about her pre-season preparations, “My pre-season was pleasantly steady and went according to plan. I didn’t have to deal with any obstacles, so I had a secure and confident preparation for the season. I made small changes compared to previous years, combining more riding and strength work, and put some focus on areas such as sprints and time trial power output.”

From Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kasia will go to Italy to race one of her favourites, Strade Bianche. It’s a race combination that the Polish rider enjoys.

“I like to get into classics mode from the beginning of the year. I prefer training specifically for the classics, where aggressive short accelerations are key. I know the parcours of Omloop well, and that experience makes it easy to restart the season in Belgium. Strade Bianche is one of my first objectives of the year, but I aim to perform in every race I appear.”

HOW TO WATCH

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad starts at 13:25CET and can be followed on Twitter with #OHNwomen and #UCIWWT. Watch the Flanders Classics season opener on GCN, Eurosport, FloBikes, Sporza Eén and Proximus from 16:30CET. A live stream of the team presentation can be found on Pickx from 12:00CET.

*updated 23/02/2023

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