Lotte Kopecky, winner of the Vélo d’Or for Best Female Rider and the Eddy Merckx Trophy for Best Classics Female Rider, has delivered impressive results in both the Spring Classics and Grand Tours.
In 2024, the SD Worx-ProTime rider kicked off her season with victories at Nokere Koerse, Paris-Roubaix, Strade Bianche, and the UAE Tour. She further expanded her impressive list of achievements with an overall win at the Tour de Romandie and the Simac Ladies Tour, in addition to finishing second overall at the Giro d’Italia. Kopecky capped off her successful season with a consecutive road world championship title.
The previous year, Kopecky won the Tour of Flanders for the second time in a row, finished second overall at the Tour de France, won the final green jersey, and secured the road world championship in Glasgow.
She believes that she doesn’t need to abandon her General Classification ambitions to focus on the Classics.
“The Classics are still the races I like the most. That’s the reason why I ride my bike. So I don’t think I will ever drop them, but you can really combine them in my opinion, Classics and summer [Grand Tours] are most of the time really two different periods in the calendar,” the Belgian rider told L’équipe.
“And of course, I will implement more climbing training in the spring, but still, I don’t think that we will be at a disadvantage if you go to races like Liège. So I will never really drop the spring Classics for a GC.”
Kopecky loves “the character of the [Classics] races, the change of the weather every week,” and enjoys the fact that a fans line up at the road side and that many of the races take place in Belgium.
“First of all, I can handle the rain and the cold. I like short, explosive climbs, we have a lot of them. A lot of races end in a small bunch sprint, which I also like, I’m just always really motivated for those kind of races.”
Though her favourite race is Tour of Flanders, she considers the Ardennes Classics to be the most difficult races. “Fléche Wallonne is pretty hard, but Liège as well. The final is pretty heavy, so I think they’re harder than the Flemish ones.”
The new Women’s WorldTour race in 2025, Milan-San Remo Donne, scheduled for March 22, is an event that she is “looking forward to.”
“It’s something we need to talk about still with the team. It’s gonna be a really nice race,” Kopecky said. “You just have to see how it fits in the calendar.”
The 2025 Spring Classics kick off with Omloop Nieuwsblad Women on March 1st.