When she was first allowed to participate in the professional peloton, Babette van der Wolf talks about her debut year in 2023 in the service of the British Lifeplus Wahoo team, she was mainly concerned with surviving every competition. The transition from the juniors to the Women’s World Tour (WWT) was a big one: suddenly the races were twice as long – instead of 60, 130 kilometers were ridden – and the pace was a lot faster. “Often I didn’t even finish,” remembers the rider, who now competes for the American EF Education-Oatly.
She certainly wasn’t thinking about winning or competing for the podium. “The older generation clearly stood out,” says Van der Wolf. That is not surprising in cycling, where athletes are usually between the ages of 25ste and 30ste peaks. Experienced riders such as Demi Vollering, the Belgian Lotte Kopecky and Annemiek van Vleuten crossed the line first a total of 37 times that season.
Since last year, however, 21-year-old Van der Wolf has noticed that something is changing in the peloton: around her, the youngsters are starting to compete for prizes. “More and more, younger riders are emerging and are immediately successful at the highest level. In fact, the older riders in the peloton are no longer much better than us.”
“You see that young girls connect more quickly with the elite,” says Lucinda Brand of the American Lidl-Trek, one of the older riders at 36 years old. “When I ride in the peloton, I regularly think: who are you again?”
The figures in this early cycling season confirm the trend. In the first ten WWT matches, a woman under the age of 25 finished on the podium nine times; more than in the same period in 2025 and 2024. The Tour of Bruges was won last week by nineteen-year-old Carys Lloyd, Fleur Moors (20) came second in In Flanders Fields (formerly Gent-Wevelgem) and in the biggest race of this year so far – the Milan-San Remo classic – Noemi Rüegg (24), Eleonora Gasparrini (24) and Puck finished Pieterse (23) behind winner Kopecky (30) in places 2, 3 and 4.
Born in the wrong year
Kopecky is again one of the favorites for the Tour of Flanders on Sunday, just like Vollering (29) and Lorena Wiebes (27). But the British Cat Ferguson, although she is only nineteen years old, is seen as a dangerous outsider. The driver of the Spanish Movistar finished nineteenth in her first Tour of Flanders last season, came third in the women’s classic Trofeo Alfredo Binda that same year and fourth in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad a few weeks ago. In the four races since then she turned 22stetwelfth, 21ste and sixth. “I am a bit disappointed about that,” says Ferguson, which says a lot about her ambitions.
Nineteen-year-old British rider Cat Ferguson during the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana stage race in February, in which she managed to win a stage.
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She also sees how her contemporaries are breaking through to the absolute top. And yet the level of women’s cycling has increased rapidly in recent years. Veteran Brand says that she had legs in Dwars door Vlaanderen with which she had competed for victory a few years ago. Now she had to release before the final.
It is therefore a special group that is now emerging, says 23-year-old Daniek Hengeveld, who plays for the Dutch team Visma-Lease a Bike. “I sometimes sigh that I was born in the wrong year. My entire generation rode very quickly at the highest level. I have always had a lot of competition.”
According to Ferguson, there are simply more young riders in the peloton than before and they make each other better. “If you just come to watch, you are no longer the only one who has to learn how things work in the professional peloton.” In any case, there is much more knowledge available nowadays, says the British rider: about how to train, what to eat and what the best set-up for your bike is. “All that information helps you get better faster.”
Policy changes by the UCI world cycling association have also had a major effect. With the introduction of a minimum wage in 2020, women’s cycling began an enormous development six years ago. There was more professional guidance, better equipment and higher salaries. Nowadays, every rider at the highest level earns at least 38,000 euros per year, enough to fully devote herself to the sport.
That was different in previous years, says thirty-year-old Teuntje Beekhuis, who drives for the Norwegian Uno-X Mobility. “My first contract in 2018 was more of a kind of expense reimbursement and did not even cover the costs.” Beekhuis paid for her sports with her student loans. “In the morning I worked on my thesis and in the afternoon I had a course at WWT level.”
Nowadays, juniors already go on altitude training. I didn’t do that until I was 25
There is no jealousy about today’s good contracts, say the riders of the older generation. “These girls do everything for it, so they deserve it,” says Beekhuis. She does surprise herself every now and then. “They go as juniors these days [onder de achttien jaar, red.] I already did an altitude internship, which I didn’t do until I was 25ste. As a team we have our own chef, but sometimes they don’t like something. I used to be happy if there was pasta at the buffet.”
Turning point for the sport
The rapid professionalization of women’s cycling does not only have positive effects. The situation is critical among the top, The Cyclist Alliance (TCA), a union for female drivers, noted last year after their annual survey among women professionals. The gap between the WWT and the levels below it is becoming too large, both in terms of salaries and level, and more than half of first- and second-year professional cyclists are unsure whether they should stop cycling out of financial need, TCA concluded. The union spoke of a turning point for the sport.
The big problem is that teams at the lower levels are having financial difficulties and that there are few competitions for women in the promising category (under 23 years), which limits the opportunities for riders to gradually develop. Something needs to be done about this quickly, the young riders agree. “Men’s cycling has so many races for the promising category that almost every professional team has a development team. For women, there are only a few every year,” says Ferguson.
Her own career progression has not helped in that regard, says the British rider, who was one of the few to successfully make the direct transition from juniors to the pros. “Now some juniors think that if they don’t take that same step, they are not good enough.” But when you’re only eighteen, says Ferguson, you still have a lot of time to develop yourself.
Daniek Hengeveld before the start of In Flanders Fields last week.
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According to Hengeveld, teams are paying more and more attention to this. “I can work for Marianne for a weekend [Vos, red.] driving around and learning how the race works, without immediately expecting a result from me.” At Lidl-Trek, Brand is a teammate of twenty-year-old Fleur Moors from Belgium, who finished second in Wevelgem last weekend, and saw how she was given time to develop. “We already knew that Fleur was good enough last year, but she was deliberately not always drafted.”
Babette van der Wolf considers herself a good example of a rider who needs a little more time. She consciously chose a team at a lower level in 2023 to develop, but due to financial problems with that team, she was immediately drafted into all major competitions. “I had no choice then, but I would have preferred a mix of competitions at the highest and lower levels.”
She now knows that she has to be patient, says Van der Wolf, although it is motivating to see how good peers like Ferguson already are. “Riding at such a level is also my dream.” Van der Wolf, already in her fourth year as a professional, is sometimes called “the old brain” by her teammates, she says. “Sometimes I forget how young I am. Then I have to remind myself that if I want to grow to the top, I still have years to do so.”
