Although Oro-Medonte, Ont.’s Ava Holmgren has already started her season in fine form, multiple world champ Isabella has not. That changes on Saturday.
This weekend the women’s peloton heads to northern Italy for one of the big early races on the calendar: the Trofeo Alfredo Binda.
Over the years the women’s calendar has expanded to include many of the same big events as the me. But this race has actually long stood on its own as one of the sport’s true spring events.
What happened last year?
In 2025, Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) took her third dub in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda. The Italian sprinter proved fastest in Cittiglio after a selective race that reduced the peloton to a small group of contenders. She finished ahead of Blanka Kata Vas and Cat Ferguson. Balsamo, teammate of Isabella Holmgren, won’t be there this year–but her team is stacked.
The 2025 race was animated earlier by several Dutch riders. Demi Vollering, Puck Pieterse and Anna van der Breggen all launched attacks on the climbs of Orino and Casale, attempting to split the race before the finish. Despite their efforts, the fastest finishers managed to stay in contention, setting up the sprint that ultimately went Balsamo’s way.
The course
As tradition dictates, the race starts and finishes in Cittiglio, the hometown of Alfredo Binda. The riders tackle a series of local laps of roughly 18 kilometres, each including the climbs of Orino (2.6 km at 4.9 per cent ) and the steeper Casale ascent (800 metres at 7.1 per cent).
The route suits punchy, explosive riders. After getting the final climb of Casale, it’s only about 10 km left to the finish in Cittiglio. So if you make the right move…it can work.
Riders to watch
Demi Vollering and Anna van der Breggen will not be there on Sunday, but there’s a whole bunch of other riders going for it.
Canyon-SRAM will look to Katarzyna Niewiadoma to animate the climbs, while Puck Pieterse has also added the race to her schedule and will likely race aggressively. The Felix-Premier Tech rider is always a joy to watch with her animated racing–whether on the dirt or the road, she never gives up.
These riders will try to break the race apart on Orino and Casale in hopes of dropping the fastest finishers before the run-in to Cittiglio. EF Education-Oatly could also play a role with world champion Magdeleine Vallieres Mill and Noemi Rüegg in their squad. The Sherbrooke Que. rider is already doing just fine in her rainbow kit–she was awesome at Strade Bianche.
Sprint or break?
The key question is whether the climbers and attackers can distance the sprinters. If a reduced group arrives together, several fast finishers immediately become dangerous. Riders such as Blanka Kata Vas, Marianne Vos, Mischa Bredewold, Lotte Kopecky, Ally Wollaston, Letizia Borghesi and Célia Gery all have the speed to win from a small sprint.
And then there is Cat Ferguson. The 19-year-old Brit has already collected several impressive victories in 2026 and finished fourth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad earlier this season. If the race ends in a sprint from a select group, she could very well fight for the biggest win of her career so far.
There’s also Paris-Nice finishing up, Tirreno-Adriatico…so much bike racing!