Vote for the 2023 Women’s Cyclist of the Year!

Oy, busy times, these posts are moving slowly. But still! It’s very much high time to vote on our Women’s winners for 2023! Let’s get to the main event, our Rider of the Year.

The candidates are… who you would have expected.

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• Lotte Kopecky: Just a massive step forward for the Belgian star, who may have been second in the rankings, but the quality of her victories is utterly compelling: Ronde van Vlaanderen, the Thüringen overall with stages, both Belgian RR and TT titles, a stage and second overall at the Tour de France, the road race World Championship… what a magical run for the 28-year-old whose previous best season was sixth, before she bumped her points by some 60% and landed second overall.

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• Demi Vollering: Hmm, she finished second in de Ronde and the Vuelta, and… that’s about it. Vollering opened her account at Strade Bianche with a win, then Dwars, then she won the Ardennes Triple Crown (Amstel-Flèche-Liège), then a few near misses (or gifts to teammates), then the Tourmalet stage and overall Tour de France victory. And the Dutch championships, and Romandie, and others. About the only races she lost to a non-teammate would be the Vuelta, where Annemiek van Vleuten won but Vollering took the Lagos de Covadonga stage, and the road worlds, where her trade teammate scored the win. Nobody spent less time feeling disappointed this year.

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• Annemiek van Vleuten: The 40-year-old Dutch Superduperstar glided gently into retirement with a season that almost anyone else would kill for: a Vuelta-Giro Donne Double, with her Giro win being essentially wire-to-wire (following stage 1 being neutralized by bad weather). She also won the Scandinavia Tour and three Giro stages, plus a steady stream of top finishes behind someone from SD Worx. She will go out on top, as arguably the best ever, at least among retirees.

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• Lorena Wiebes: Another major brick in the SD Worx wall, Wiebes used her fast finish to win stages in just about every race she entered (Burgos, UAE Tour, Thüringen, Giro Donne, Tour de France, Scandinavia Tour), plus a few classics like Ronde van Drenthe. At 24, Wiebes is going to win a lot more races.

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• Shirin van Anrooij: Admittedly on a different level from the galacticos here, but I will try to spice up the competition a bit nonetheless. Van Anrooij falls in the category of young supertalents leveling up and achieving major wins, her signature this year in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda. Also won the Tour de l’Avenir, and was second in Burgos. She was super competitive in the classics, third in Amstel, 8th in Flanders. Second in the Euros U23 race… and of course your reigning U23 World Champion in cyclocross.

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• Marlen Reusser: The Swiss crono and road star smashed all of her previous bests this year, moving up to fourth in the world overall (PdC; 5th in other rankings) in her third World Tour season, at age 31 — she didn’t even take up the sport until university. However proud SDWorx may be of her, she won’t be wearing team colors much, since she’s the Swiss champ on the road and the Euro champ in the ITT. Her major wins were her home tour, Gent-Wevelgem, the concluding time trial stage of the Tour de France, and the overall title at the Itzulia Women’s Tour. At least one source says her nickname is the Flying Elephant. That has to be worth some votes.

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• Pfeiffer Georgi: One more rapid riser, the British Champion scored four wins (including her last ride, at Binche-Chimay-Binche) and moved up to twelfth in the world in the process, setting herself up for a nice run in, well, the rest of her early 20s, and beyond.

OK, voting time!