It should not be be a surprise when Lotte Kopecky wins a bike race. The 28-year-old has won 47 of them across her career, including seven individual time trials before Wednesday. However, to win so dominantly at an elite TT, as she did this week at the European Championships, hints that there are bigger things to come for the Belgian.
She was not the favourite coming into the race, with former world champion Ellen van Dijk and Riejanne Markus both on the start list, but ended up winning from Van Dijk by 43 seconds on an incredibly flat course. It was a statement win, and one that puts her into the equation for victory at the World Championships in a fortnight.
Likewise, victory at the Tour de Romandie last weekend was not Kopecky's first general classification victory - she has six now, including the UAE Tour and the Tour of Britain Women this year - but it was the first with a properly tough route, and a properly tough field, including her teammate (soon to be ex-teammate), Demi Vollering.
In the three-stage race, Kopecky did not win a stage, but picked up bonus seconds on each day to top the GC by six seconds from Vollering. On stage two, we were treated to the sight of Vollering and Kopecky sprinting against each other, two teammates apparently forgoing all sense of collective work in the aim of individual glory. It's not the first time this has happened, if you cast your mind back to Strade Bianche in 2023, but it was the most stark evidence of the budding rivalry which will burst into action next year.
Kopecky is a rider who can pretty much do everything, apart from win a pure bunch sprint. It has seemed like Vollering and Kopecky are different kinds of riders, the former more of a climber, the latter more of a puncheur, but there is not as much specialisation in women's cycling, and so, more than often, the pair are fighting for the same wins. Free of the shackles of being on the same team, the duel might be all the more common, which is an enticing prospect. The same pair could be one-two at the Tour of Flanders or the Tour de France.
While Vollering has more GC experience, with victories at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and La Vuelta Femenina, among others, Kopecky is not a million miles behind. She finished second at this year's Giro d'Italia Women, just 21 seconds behind Elisa Longo Borghini, and was second at the Tour last year, behind Vollering, although the gap was bigger at 3:03. Vollering remains the rider to beat in the mountains, on those Alpine or Pyrenean lengthy climbs at altitude, but it is not beyond Kopecky to improve. There is little that she has proved herself incapable of to date.
That is where the results at the Europeans and the Tour de Romandie leave us. Kopecky should have full backing at SD Worx-Protime next year, despite the return of Anna van der Breggen, and her change into a GC rider is a tantalising prospect. Vollering, wherever she ends up, stands in her way, but one should never bet against Kopecky. Roll on 2025.
