The 'real' racing season kicks off this weekend as the men's and women's peloton descend upon Flanders for Opening Weekend – as the name suggests, the first road racing action in Belgium of the new season.
Of course, the 2024 campaign has already been underway for well over a month, taking in stops in Australia, in the UAE and Oman, and also with races in Spain and Portugal. However, after some early-season sunshine, now marks the time to hit the grey skies and cobbles – and for fans, the beers and frites – as the spring Classics begin.
Saturday's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is the tougher and bigger of the weekend's races, with the challenge of the cobbled climbs extending late into the race and the famous Kapelmuur-Bosberg one-two that featured for so long as the grand finale to the Tour of Flanders.
For this reason, we'll be focusing our contenders watch on the WorldTour and Women's WorldTour events, though plenty of the same names will stick around for Sunday and the more sprinter-friendly Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and the hilly challenge of the Omloop van het Hageland.
Lining up outside Gent's 't Kuipke velodrome on Saturday morning, we'll see nascent young promises mix with some of the biggest Classics stars in the world, all hoping to leave an early mark on the spring Classics warm-up.
It may be too far away from the main slate of April Classics for the race to serve as a real form indicator, but it's still an important stopping-off point on the road to Flanders and Roubaix.
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10 contenders
Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)
With no Mathieu van der Poel on the start line in Gent, there's no doubt that his eternal rival Wout van Aert is the biggest name and the top favourite lining up for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
The Belgian, who will take on the race for the fifth time in his career, has form at Opening Weekend, having won the race on his most recent participation two years ago.
In the interim, his team dominated Opening Weekend last February, with Dylan van Baarle and Christophe Laporte pulling off a one-three in Ninove before Tiesj Benoot and Nathan Van Hooydonck went one-two the next day at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne.
Visma-Lease a Bike are well-equipped to repeat the feat this weekend, too, with Van Aert joined on the start list by Van Baarle, Laporte, and Benoot as well as new signing Matteo Jorgenson.
As team leader, Van Aert is the main one to watch, though team tactics could mean that any one of them could make it onto the final podium, the squad almost resembling a modern-day Mapei in terms of strength.
What's more, Van Aert has already shown his form this season, taking a sprint win in Tavira at the recent Volta ao Algarve. On Saturday, he and the 'killer bees' ride again. (DO)
Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime)
SD Worx's entire team could occupy our top five women to watch. However, Cyclingnews has selected World Champion Lotte Kopecky as the team's main contender for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Kopecky enjoyed an unforgettable season last year that included success at the Tour of Flanders, Tour de France and World Championships. She started this season with a bang at the UAE Tour Women, where she won the queen stage 3 atop Jebel Hafeet and secured the overall title.
It's early in the season, and even Kopecky admitted that she is not yet at peak form, as she is targeting the Olympic Games, Tour de France Femmes and World Championships later in the year.
Kopecky lines up as the defending champion alongside her teammate Lorena Wiebes, who was second last year. Wiebes recently won two stages at the UAE Tour, showing top form ahead of the Spring Classics.
Making her debut this season is Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering, the only rider who outperformed Kopecky last year and always a contender, while Marlen Reusser rounds out the team's winning vibes to complete a powerful lineup in Gent-Ninove. (KF)
Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep)
Leading the charge in the fight against Visma-Lease a Bike are the perennial Classics super-team of Soudal-QuickStep. The Belgian squad has come through a tumultuous winter, holding off a Visma takeover and losing strong Classics riders including Florian Sénéchal, Tim Declercq, Davide Ballerini, and Fabio Jakobsen along the way.
They've retooled though, bringing aboard Gianni Moscon, who will hope to resurrect a stalling career, a Classics domestique in Casper Pedersen, and a swathe of promising neo-pros – of whom Warre Vangheluwe will race at Omloop.
Heading up the QuickStep selection are Julian Alaphilippe, Kasper Asgreen, and Yves Lampaert – a trio of top contenders that few other teams can match on paper.
Of the three, Alaphilippe has shown the best form so far in 2024, finishing sixth at the Tour Down Under, while former Omloop runner-up Lampaert has a top 10 at the Challenge Mallorca, and Asgreen – who hasn't competed for the win in his three starts at the race – has yet to pin on a number this season.
The team has the strength in depth to overpower the majority of the peloton, barring perhaps Visma-Lease a Bike. They'll need to be at their best to beat the Dutch team and take back the Omloop title they recently won in 2019 and 2021. (DO)
Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek)
Like SD Worx, US team Lidl-Trek also lines up with a series of contenders, but we have chosen Lizzie Deignan as their rider to watch on Saturday.
A former champion in the 2016 edition, Deignan knows how to win this race and has the team to back up her chances of success with the likes of Elisa Longo Borghini and Elisa Balsamo as the team's two other contenders.
Lidl-Trek has called this team 'gutsy', and we agree, as the team also includes Lauretta Hanson, Brodie Chapman and Ilaria Sanguineti.
"It's been two years now since I’ve raced Opening Weekend, and I'm really happy to finally be back here and to be lining up as part of this team for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, a race I won in 2016," Deignan said recently. "It's the type of race that I like. It's never easy; it produces tough and gritty racing, and I doubt that will change this year."
Balsamo and Longo Borghini have already kicked off their seasons at UAE Tour and Setmana Valencia, so Deignan enters Opening Weekend with a fresh perspective and new motivation to begin an important 2024 campaign. (KF)
Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious)
In Matej Mohorič, Bahrain Victorious have on their hands a rare rider who can compete all through the spring.
Of course, he's a Milan-San Remo champion and has a flurry of top fives and top 10s at Paris-Roubaix, Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the E3 Saxo Classic, and the Amstel Gold Race on his palmarès.
Last year he showed what he could do at Opening Weekend for the first time, too, taking third at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne behind the Jumbo-Visma dominators. His all-round abilities make him a perfect name for contention at Omloop, even if his squad can't quite match the power of the 'big two' teams.
He'll have Fred Wright for company, the Briton a favourite in his own right who will also be among the top contenders this spring. He's in form, too, starting his season with a handful of strong results at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, including a trademark downhill win on stage 2. (DO)
Emma Norsgaard (Movistar)
Emma Norsgaard was fourth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad last year and has the capacity to improve on that performance with a strong team to back her efforts.
She began the year at the UAE Tour, and although she didn't achieve a top result, she is back on Belgian's cobbled, hilly terrain which caters much more to her style as a rider.
Norsgaard will begin the year buoyed by her victory in a stage at the Tour de France Femmes last summer and ready to take on a new season and with it the Spring Classics.
Although her Movistar team have lost Annemiek van Vleuten, who retired over the winter, they line up with big ambitions and a team that also includes proven winners Arlenis Sierra and Floortje Mackaij. (KF)
Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers)
Tom Pidcock continues the beginning of a busy, multi-disciplinary 2024 with a return to Omloop Het Nieuwsblad coming off the back of a good start to his season.
After the conclusion of his cyclocross campaign back in January, he's so far taken a mountain bike win in Spain before finishing sixth overall at the Volta ao Algarve, with two strong summit finish performances to boot.
He'll line up as Ineos Grenadiers' leader in Gent on Saturday, returning to the race where he finished fifth last year in the chase group behind Christophe Laporte.
As one of the strongest Classics riders in the peloton, he's right up there on the favourites list with the likes of Van Aert and Alaphilippe, even if his team doesn't have quite as many alternative options to call upon.
Ben Turner, however, will be one. Like Pidcock, another 24-year-old Yorkshireman, he burst onto the scene in the spring two years ago as part of Ineos' always-attacking young squad. He endured a tough spring last year – including a crash at Omloop – but will be hoping to get his 2024 Classics campaign off to a better start this weekend. (DO)
Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Deceuninck)
Christina Schweinberger's performance in both the road race and time trial at the Glasgow World Championships should put her on everyone's radar during the 2024 season, beginning with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Schweinberger began racing in 2018 with the now-folded teams Health Mate-Cyclelive and then Doltcini-Van Eyck-Proximus and then found a contract with Multum Accountants Ladies Cycling Team in 2022. She then transferred to Plantur-Pura later that year, and the team changed names to Fenix-Deceuninck and signed a deal through 2025.
The Austrian rider has steadily built her strengths among the Women's WorldTour peloton with multiple top 10s – including eighth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Classic Brugge-De Panne and fifth at Gent-Wevelgem.
Those performances were the foundation for her success later in the year at the Glasgow World Championships, where she finished third in the time trial behind Chloe Dygert and Grace Brown and then fifth among the decisive final group that included new world champion, Lotte Kopecky.
Watch for Schweinberger to turn heads once again at the Spring Classics. (KF)
Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny)
Another young rider among our selection, the 21-year-old De Lie has enjoyed a career of unabated progress during his two seasons in the pro peloton to date.
The Belgian followed up nine wins in his debut 2022 campaign with 10 more last year, including a first career WorldTour triumph at the GP Québec. At Opening Weekend he confounded expectations by sprinting to second in Omloop having looked one of the strongest men all race, then going on to take seventh at Kuurne the next day.
He'd keep up his good form throughout the spring, his first riding quite so many WorldTour races, adding top 10s at Dwars door Vlaanderen and Brabantse Pijl to his burgeoning palmarès.
This time around, De Lie hits the cobbles with another season of experience and development with Lotto-Dstny and can safely be counted among the top contenders.
With a fourth at the Clásica de Alméria his top result so far this season, he hasn't quite shown the flying form that saw him start at Omloop last year with three wins to his name, but he'll certainly be up there on Saturday. (DO)
Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM)
There are several riders we could highlight for the fifth rider to watch during Omloop Het Nieuwsblad – more on them below – but we have decided on Swiss racer Chabbey.
The 30-year-old is the type of rider who is always in the running for a victory. She's aggressive, opportunistic, and savvy, and her strength on punchy, hilly parcours is impressive.
She has enjoyed much success in her career, including top overall performances in shorter stage races such as the UAE Tour and Tour de Suisse, and the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta. She's also achieved strong results in Classics such as Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Ronde van Drenthe, and Paris-Roubaix.
Chabbey is the type of rider who can both work for her teammates and perform across varied terrain, going for special classifications and top results.
Now starting her fourth season with Canyon-SRAM, and has matured into one of the most versatile riders in the field. We think this is her year to shine on the podiums during the Spring Classics. (KF)
10 honourable mentions
Of course, beyond the biggest names, there are always more riders to take into consideration both as favourites for the win or outsiders from the podium. We've selected a few more names who will be ones to watch out for this weekend.
Looking at the women's start list, you have Pfeiffer Georgi (dsm-firmenich PostNL) the British champion who blossomed into one of the peloton's strongest riders last year and finished fifth at Omloop.
Anna Henderson (Visma-Lease a Bike) is another Briton to watch, having been consistent through the spring last year amid a slate of top 10s. She'll have superstar Marianne Vos by her side, too.
Former Visma racer Amber Kraak switched to FDJ-Suez for 2024 and impressed at the UAE Tour with a peloton-defying breakaway win. Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig is also on board as part of the strong FDJ selection.
Sofia Bertizzolo is part of a UAE Team ADQ squad also starting Silvia Persico and Chiara Consonni – with all three capable of scoring a result in the northern Classics.
After her epic victory in Paris-Roubaix last year, Alison Jackson (EF Education-Cannondale) has forever marked herself as a rider to watch on the cobbles, and she'll be racing on both days this weekend.
At the men's race, Jasper Philipsen will head up Alpecin-Deceuninck in the absence of Mathieu van der Poel. The Belgian showed last spring that he'll be among the very top contenders going forward, though he hasn't yet raced in 2024.
Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek) has history at Omloop, having won here four years ago. An added bonus for him and his team is the addition of the peloton's top domestique for 2024 – Tim Declercq.
Africa's biggest cycling star Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) will hope Opening Weekend kicks off a Classic season some way better than his illness-and concussion-blighted 2023 campaign. He's already shown promising signs of an early form build in Australia with two podiums at the Tour Down Under and a Surf Coast Classic win.
Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) is by now well-established as a perennial cobbled Classics contender, and a breakthrough win at Omloop would be well-deserved for the time triallist after years of battling away against faster finishers.
Finally, a wildcard name is Spanish champion Oier Lazkano (Movistar), who burst onto the Classics scene last spring with a battling breakaway ride to second at the Dwars door Vlaanderen, and who has already won the Clásica Jaén this season.
