Elisa Longo Borghini is just like us. She, too, has been sitting at home watching recent races with an increasing sense of frustration. The Trek-Segafredo rider had been sidelined with Covid for the best part of a month before returning to racing at Dwars door Vlaanderen and then the Tour of Flanders last week.
Watching races like Ghent-Wevelgem while convalescing at home from a fifteen-day Covid-positive streak, Longo Borghini was getting tired of the sense of defeat that had seemed to come over the peloton in the face of SD Worx and their dominance. (I like to imagine that she was yelling at the TV complete with some classic Italian hand gestures.)
“I’ve been watching a lot of television lately, and it seems like every time they are on the front, the entire peloton is like ‘okay, SD Worx is on the front, so they won the race,’” she lamented after Flanders on Sunday.
The 31-year-old was referring to the negative tactics that have plagued recent races wherein a second group on the road has withered in the face of a solo SD Worx rider attacking and then benefiting from having multiple teammates behind. The obvious solution to SD Worx’s superior numbers is cooperation between teams and forming a concerted chase but instead riders attacked each other or merely resigned themselves to competing for minor places.
Longo Borghini and her Trek-Segafredo team, however, channeled this frustration both at Dwars door Vlaanderen and Tour of Flanders last week. One of very few teams with the numbers to challenge SD Worx, Trek took the fight to the Dutch team in both races, coming away with third at Flanders for Longo Borghini. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this renewed energy coincided with the former winner’s return.
“It was hard but at some point, you just don’t have to always think about these SD Worx that are around, otherwise you just lose the race,” she said post-Flanders.
“I’m like ‘no, we have to do our race. We don’t have to give a heck if they are back there in the second peloton. We do our race, we stick to the plan. We try to get back the first ones and we try to win the race and we look for our plan because we also as Trek-Segafredo have a lot of potential and we can win bike races.”
Longo Borghini isn’t the only woman feeling defiant in the face of SD Worx. Her compatriot, Silvia Persico of UAE Team ADQ, was the last rider able to hang on to Lotte Kopecky’s wheel before she sailed away from her up the Kwaremont. But she remains undeterred.
“For sure SD Worx now is a strong team [but] for sure I know that maybe in the next month that we can arrive and we can fight. Maybe now they are like one step more than others but I really hope that we can take this same step and fight with them,” Persico told reporters after the race.
Longo Borghini’s teammate, Shirin van Anrooij, was earmarked for leadership at Flanders before the front group was subjected to the unparalleled strength of Kopecky and Trek pivoted to a sprint with Longo Borghini. Asked if she felt frustrated by the team’s dominance the 20-year-old answered between chattering teeth: “Of course, but we knew it before the start that they’re going to be really strong and that they’re going to race like that. And if they just drop you on the climb, there’s nothing you can really do about it. I think Lotte was just super strong today and we tried to close the gap but with all the SD Worx riders, it’s hard to keep going sometimes.”
Still, like Longo Borghini, Van Anrooij was heartened by her team’s performance. A team with a title to defend this weekend at Paris Roubaix with the Italian. Despite her third place at Flanders, Longo Borghini insisted that she felt far from her best during the race, and credits her team’s belief in her for her third place.
“I would never ever expected to get third today on the Tour of Flanders, especially after my comeback and after not having any intensity for 15 days and being positive [for Covid] for the previous 15,” she said.
“I felt really bad all day long so I was like ‘okay, I can help Shirin and then just come back to the group to help Shirin again. And I was just believing that if the others were believing in me, I could get on the podium.”
Persico, too, claimed that she was not in her best condition having only recently returned from altitude. The younger Italian claimed that she needed “more racing in my legs” although she will not line up for Roubaix this weekend, instead opting for an Ardennes campaign.
For Longo Borghini, the weekend presents the potential for Trek to hold on to their Paris Roubaix Femmes monopoly and take her second title in a row and a third for the team after Lizzie Deignan’s victory at the inaugural race in 2021. SD Worx and — last year’s second place — Lotte Kopecky will still go into the race as favourites but the peloton, and in particular Trek-Segafredo, seem to have rediscovered their fight to take them on.
The defending champion seemed quietly hopeful after her performance on Sunday.
“Roubaix is just another race where we have to play with the numbers. And, I don’t know, it seems like maybe I’m in a better shape than I expected,” she said. Before shutting down any speculation in her characteristic wry manner: “But I don’t want to make any thoughts now about Roubaix. I want to cherish with my teammates this podium.
Roubaix is next Saturday, and we think maybe on Friday about it.”
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