Strade Bianche Donne

Strade Bianche Donne is the women's Tuscan gravel classic, a one-day bike race first held in 2015. The race runs through the Crete Senesi region south of Siena, mixing white gravel sectors with rolling terrain before finishing in the Piazza del Campo.

Strade Bianche Donne is the women’s race over the white gravel roads of Tuscany, first held in 2015. It finishes up the steep Via Santa Caterina and in the Piazza del Campo in Siena. Three riders have won it twice, and in 2026 a group of favorites followed a motorbike off the course.

Megan Guarnier wins the first Strade Bianche Donne in 2015

The first edition was held on March 7, 2015, and Megan Guarnier won it. Lizzie Deignan, then racing as Lizzie Armitstead, won the following year. In 2017 Elisa Longo Borghini won at 25, and she is still the youngest winner and the only Italian one.

No Dutch rider reached the podium in those three editions. Dutch riders then won five of the next six, and four different riders shared those wins.

Anna van der Breggen alone in the mud in 2018

Anna van der Breggen won in 2018, in what the organizer calls the wettest and muddiest edition the race has had. She finished alone. It was her first win of a season in which she also took the Tour of Flanders, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the world title in Innsbruck. Kasia Niewiadoma was second, as she had been in 2016 and 2017.

Annemiek van Vleuten and the chase of Mavi García

Annemiek van Vleuten won in 2019 by attacking on the gravel climb of Le Tolfe, about 12 kilometers from the finish, and riding alone to Siena.

The 2020 race was postponed by the pandemic and run in August, in heat of 36°C and more. Mavi García attacked 45 kilometers from the finish and built a lead of more than three minutes. Van Vleuten, in the world champion’s jersey, crossed to the chasing group on Colle Pinzuto and started Le Tolfe 1 minute 35 seconds behind. She dropped the others there, caught García with 7 kilometers to go and left her on Via Santa Caterina. Leah Thomas was third, almost two minutes later.

In 2021 a dozen riders were still together after the last gravel, and Chantal van den Broek-Blaak beat Longo Borghini on the climb to the Piazza del Campo. A year later Lotte Kopecky beat Van Vleuten head to head, and Van Vleuten missed a third win by a few meters.

Vollering and Kopecky’s photo finish in 2023

In 2023 Kristen Faulkner attacked 40 kilometers from the finish and was still alone at the foot of Via Santa Caterina. Demi Vollering and Kopecky, teammates at SD Worx, passed her on the climb and then raced each other. Kopecky came by with 300 meters to go, and Vollering came back in the Piazza del Campo and won with a bike throw. It took the photo to separate them, and the organizer described the gap as the smallest at the finish of a Strade Bianche, women’s or men’s.

Both have won again since. In 2024 Kopecky attacked on Le Tolfe, 10 kilometers out, and dropped Longo Borghini on the final climb. In 2025 Vollering, by then with FDJ-Suez, went clear with Van der Breggen, her former teammate and coach, and the two reached the last kilometer 1 minute 45 seconds ahead. Van der Breggen led onto Via Santa Caterina, Vollering attacked 500 meters from the line, and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was third. Van Vleuten, Kopecky and Vollering have two wins each, and nobody has three.

The wrong turn of 2026 and Elise Chabbey’s win

The 2026 race covered 133 kilometers, 31.7 of them on gravel. A crash on the longest sector, San Martino in Grania, left 24 riders at the front. Vollering punctured and Ferrand-Prévot jammed her chain on Le Tolfe with a little over 40 kilometers to go. With 33 kilometers left their group, which also held Kopecky, was about a minute behind the leaders. It followed a motorbike straight on, down a gravel track that was not part of the course. By the time the riders had turned around, they were almost three minutes behind.

Eight riders reached the last kilometer together. Niewiadoma and Longo Borghini attacked side by side on Via Santa Caterina. Elise Chabbey, Vollering’s teammate, was fourth over the top and passed all three riders ahead of her in the last 300 meters through the streets. She was 32, and it was the biggest win of her career.

Kasia Niewiadoma’s four second places in Siena

Niewiadoma was second in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and third in 2019. Before the 2024 race she had finished in the top ten eight times in nine starts, and that year she lost the sprint for third place to Vollering. In 2026 she attacked on Via Santa Caterina and finished second to Chabbey, ahead of Chabbey’s teammate Franziska Koch. It was the fourth time she had been second, and she has not won the race.

This race has become a proving ground for the generation's best all-rounders. Megan Guarnier won the first edition, and the winner list since has included Annemiek van Vleuten, Anna van der Breggen, Lotte Kopecky, and Demi Vollering. The gravel sectors, from a few hundred meters to 9.5 km long, come often enough to reward bike handling and positioning under pressure, and the finale into Siena's square is steep enough that a small gap becomes decisive. It sits early in the spring calendar, often catching riders between winter form and April sharpness, which makes it less predictable than races held later in the season.