Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Women

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is the women's WorldTour one-day bike race that launches the cobbled classics calendar in Flanders at the end of February or the start of March. First held in 2006, it has become the proving ground where spring campaigns begin.

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Women is the one-day race that opens the Belgian cobbled season, run from Ghent to Ninove over the Muur van Geraardsbergen and the Bosberg. It was first held in 2006 and has been part of the Women’s WorldTour since 2023.

The first women’s Omloop Het Volk in 2006

The first edition was raced on March 12, 2006, as the Omloop Het Volk, the name the men’s race had carried since the newspaper Het Volk founded it in 1945. Suzanne de Goede, then 21, won a bunch sprint ahead of Mirjam Melchers and Tanja Hennes. Mie Bekker-Lacota won in 2007 and Kirsten Wild in 2008, and all three of those editions were held in mid-March.

Het Nieuwsblad took over Het Volk in 2008, and the race took the name of the new owner. On February 28, 2009, the women raced on the same day as the men, with start and finish in Ghent. De Goede won again, in a sprint ahead of Noemi Cantele.

Emma Johansson and the years of the Ghent finish

Emma Johansson won in 2010 and 2011, both times in a sprint, and is still the only rider to have won in consecutive years. She finished on the podium five times between 2008 and 2014. Her Orica-AIS teammate Tiffany Cromwell won in 2013 from a two-rider move with Megan Guarnier, and remembers the course of those years: “The layout was you’d have the climbs in the middle and the flat cobbles at the end.”

Anna van der Breggen won in 2015 by outsprinting Ellen van Dijk after the two had gone clear inside the last 30 kilometers. Lizzie Armitstead, now Lizzie Deignan, won alone in Ghent in 2016, in her first race in the rainbow jersey, and became the first world champion to win the race. Lucinda Brand rode the last five kilometers alone in 2017 and led an all-Dutch podium.

The 2018 move from Ghent to Ninove, over the Muur and Bosberg

In 2018 the finish moved to Meerbeke, the district of Ninove where the Tour of Flanders used to end, and a year later to the center of Ninove. The change put the Muur van Geraardsbergen and the Bosberg in the last 20 kilometers. The first edition on the new finale still came down to a sprint of 30 riders, which Christina Siggaard won.

The Muur is 1.1 kilometers long at 7.5 percent, and the Bosberg is 600 meters of steep cobbles. In 2026 the top of the Bosberg left 11.8 flat kilometers to the finish. From 2019 to 2026 every winner was either alone by the top of the Bosberg or reached Ninove with no more than three others.

The 2019 race that was stopped behind the men

In 2019 the women started less than ten minutes after the men. Nicole Hanselmann attacked in the first seven kilometers and built a lead of almost two minutes, until she could see the last vehicles of the men’s race ahead of her. The officials stopped the women’s race after 35 kilometers. “I think we stopped for five or seven minutes and then it just kills your chances,” Hanselmann said at the finish. She was caught on the first cobbled section after the restart.

Chantal Blaak won that edition alone after attacking over the top of the Muur; she had finished second in 2016 and 2017. In 2026 the women started two and a half hours after the men and were due at the finish about an hour and a half after them.

Van Vleuten, Van der Breggen and the two-time winners

Four riders have won twice, and nobody has won three times: De Goede, Johansson, Van der Breggen and Annemiek van Vleuten. Van Vleuten’s first win, in 2020, was a solo from the Muur and her first victory as world champion. Van der Breggen won her second in 2021, also in the rainbow jersey, after riding away on the Bosberg.

In 2022 Van Vleuten accelerated on the Bosberg and only Demi Vollering could hold her wheel. Vollering had two teammates in the chase and did not take a turn. Van Vleuten started the sprint through the second-to-last corner and held her off.

Kopecky’s first Belgian win and the WorldTour editions since 2023

In 2023, the first WorldTour edition, Lotte Kopecky became the first Belgian winner. She rode away from the peloton on the Muur, caught Arlenis Sierra, left her at the foot of the Bosberg and held off the chase for the last 12 kilometers. A year later Marianne Vos, 36 and riding the race for the first time, followed Kopecky’s attacks on both climbs and won the sprint of a four-rider group ahead of Kopecky, Elisa Longo Borghini and Shirin van Anrooij.

In 2025 a break that went clear in the first ten kilometers was still more than 13 minutes ahead with 50 kilometers left. Two of its riders, Lotte Claes and Aurela Nerlo, still had four minutes at the top of the Bosberg. Claes, a former hospital nurse in her second professional season, won the sprint for her first professional victory, and Vollering was third at 3 minutes 25 seconds.

Vollering won in 2026, on a course with the Tenbosse and Parikeberg added before the Muur. She attacked on the steepest part of the Muur, only Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney could follow, and Vollering beat her in a two-rider sprint, 21 seconds ahead of the chasers.

This race carries weight beyond its late-winter date. It is the first chance to see who arrives ready for the cobbles, who can handle the chaos of narrow climbs in uncertain weather, and who is willing to commit when fitness is still a question mark. The winner often signals broader spring form, and the race rewards tactical sharpness over raw condition. It sets the tone for everything that follows in March and April.