Eneco Tour Women

The Eneco Tour Women is a six-day women's cycling stage race across the Netherlands, held in mid-October and classed 2.1 on the UCI calendar. It is the race that was called the Simac Ladies Tour until 2025 and began in 1998 as the Holland Ladies Tour. Since 2026 it has been run on the same days and in the same towns as the men's Eneco Tour, as a race of its own with its own classification.

The Eneco Tour Women is the women’s stage race of the Netherlands, held in October on the same days as the men’s Eneco Tour. The name dates from 2026. The race is older: until 2025 it was the Simac Ladies Tour, and it began in 1998 as the Holland Ladies Tour.

How the Holland Ladies Tour began in 1998

The race was founded in 1998 on the initiative of, among others, Wim van Duivenbode and Leo van der Wal, who was then the coordinator of women’s cycling. Their thought was that a country with so many strong teams and riders needed a full stage race of its own, next to its one-day races and a few small stage races. The timing suited them, because the world championships came to Valkenburg soon afterward.

The first stage ever was a prologue of 4.6 kilometers around Ter Aar on September 15, 1998. Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel won it, and Elsbeth Vink won the race. Van Moorsel took the overall a year later.

Marianne Vos won the Dutch women’s tour four times in a row

Marianne Vos has the most overall wins, four, and she took them in successive years from 2009 to 2012. Six riders have won twice: Mirjam Melchers, Susanne Ljungskog, Chantal Blaak, Annemiek van Vleuten, Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes. Petra Rossner, Kristin Armstrong and Lisa Brennauer are among the winners from outside the Netherlands. The list runs from 1998 through 2025 and has no winner for 2020.

The record for stage wins belongs to Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, with 14. Wiebes reached 13 in 2025, one short of her.

Wiebes wins five of six stages in the last Simac Ladies Tour

The last edition under the Simac name ran from September 2 to 7, 2025, from Leuven to Lichtenvoorde, as a race of the Women’s WorldTour. Lorena Wiebes won the first four stages in sprints. On the third, crosswinds split the field in the first 40 kilometers, and an echelon of 17 riders with Wiebes in it gained more than seven minutes on the rest. Zoe Bäckstedt won the 10.2-kilometer time trial on the fifth day, six seconds ahead of Christina Schweinberger, as she had won the time trial of the year before. Ellen van Dijk was third there in the last time trial of her career. Wiebes then won the final stage as well and took the race ahead of Elisa Balsamo and Megan Jastrab, her second overall win after 2022.

Why the Simac Ladies Tour became the Eneco Tour Women

In May 2026 the energy company Eneco became title sponsor of the men’s Tour of Holland, and the Simac Ladies Tour was taken into the same event. The organizers describe the Eneco Tour as the former Simac Ladies Tour and the Tour of Holland brought together, with each race keeping its own format and its own general classification. Simac stayed on as a partner of the event. The women’s race moved from early September to the middle of October, and on the UCI calendar it went from the Women’s WorldTour to class 2.1.

The two races share their days, their start towns and their finish lines, and in the prologue women and men start in turn. “The women’s race is not a side event, but a full-fledged race alongside the men’s race,” race director Roxane Knetemann said.