Preview

The first major races in the European, specifically, the Italian calendar takes place at the weekend. The three day Trofeo Costa Etrusca race has attracted 25 teams, including 5 national teams, totalling 196 riders for this Tuscan test, which comes just a week before the first World Cup race of the 2009 UCI series up the road in Cittiglio, the Trofeo Binda (click here for Trofeo Binda preview) 

This is not really a stage race, but a series of three one day races presented by the same organisation committee. As such, teams are able to change the composition of their teams on a daily basis. 

The three races are varied but include some climbs for the riders. Race 1 takes place on Friday 20th March and makes a tour of the area of Livorno, including a climb of  Nibbiaia, 80km into the parcours. The climb of Montenero is just five kilometres away from the finish.

The second race on Saturday 21st is 113 kilometres and includes the climb to the picturesque village of Montescudaio three times. On the final ascent, the riders will no doubt be glad to see the finish line.

The final race, on Sunday 22 March is 102 kilometres and takes in the climb of Riparbella before finishing with a climb in the direction of Castellina Marittima, where Nicole Cooke, the current Olympic and World Champion stamped her mark on this race in 2007.

Recent World Champions are in the start list - reigning World and Olympic Champion, Nicole Cooke (Vision 1 Racing) and 2006 Champion, Marianne Vos (Netherlands National Team) will be riding. Also listed are previous World Champions, Regina Schleicher (Nürnberger), Susanne Ljungskog (Team Flexpoint), Edita Puckinskaite (Team Kuota Dilà) and Olympic time trial Champion, Kristin Armstrong (Cervelo Test Team).  

Back to Top

Team List  (with key riders announced)

Team Columbia (Germany) - Keller, Beltman, Villumsen
Équipe Nürnberger Versicherung (Germany) - De Goede, Schleicher, Worrack
Vision 1 Racing (Great Britain) - Cooke, Whitelaw, Wyman
Cervelo Test Team (Switzerland) - Armstrong, Wild, Pooley, Soeder
Bigla Cycling Team (Switzerland) - Brändli, K. Thürig, Cantele, Vzesniauskaite
RedSun Cycling Team (Germany) - Johansson, Brzezna, Henrion
Selle Italia Ghezzi (Italy) - Luperini, Bras, Tamanini, Bagdanoviciute
Team Flexpoint (Netherlands) - Ljungskog, Melchers VP, Schmidt
Safi Pasta Zara Titanedi (Lithuania) - Ziliute, Leleyvite, Andruk
Team Kuota dila (Italy) - Pucinskaite, Vilajosana, Donadoni
Gauss rdz Ormu Colnago (Italy) - Lechner, Corazza
Fenixs Edilsavino (Italy) - Boyarskaya, Stiajikina, Hierckens
Lotto Belisol (Belgium) - Gilmore, Armitstead
Chiri Forno d'Asolo Rouji Tre Colli (Italy) - Tuslaite, Polikeviciute, C. Fernandes
Team Elk Uniqa (Austria) - Lamborelle, Růžičková, Schachl
Sc Michela Fanin Record Rox (Italy) - Kirch, Galassi, McNellis
Top Girls Fassa Bortolo Raxy Line Arredoquattro (Italy) - D'Ettorre, Flowers
System Data McDonald's (Canada) - Grassi, Hernandez
4LIFE Freebike (Portugal)
Velo Club Cantagallo lti Rivera (Italy) - Blacks, Falorni

United States of America National - Curi, Powers
German National - Hennig
Belgium National
Netherlands National - Vos, Visser
Slovenia National 

Back to Top

Want to contact WomensCycling.net? 

The WomensCycling.net email address is

To contact the webmaster, the address is :

Type this address into the "To" line of a new email message in your email programme.

The WomensCycling.net email address is displayed as a graphic in order to reduce the amount of 'spam' email received from programmes which 'crawl' the internet for sites with addresses displayed in text and then overwhelm that address with junk, or even forge the address in junk messages that they generate and send to others. Sorry for any inconvenience this approach causes you.

Back to top