Trofeo Alfredo Binda

Trofeo Alfredo Binda, in full the Trofeo Alfredo Binda - Comune di Cittiglio, is a women's WorldTour one-day bike race held each March in the Varese province of northern Italy. First run in 1974, it takes its name from the three-time world champion and five-time Giro d'Italia winner who was born in the region.

Trofeo Alfredo Binda is a women’s one-day race in Cittiglio, near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, first held in 1974. It ends with laps over the climbs of Casale and Orino. Maria Canins and Marianne Vos have each won it four times.

When did Trofeo Alfredo Binda begin?

The first Trofeo Alfredo Binda was held in 1974, and Giuseppina Micheloni won it. It has been a women’s race from the start. Of the 23 editions to 1996, Italian riders won all but that of 1975, which went to the Belgian Nicolle Van Den Broeck.

No race was held in 1997 or 1998. It came back in 1999 and joined the international calendar in 2007. From 2008 to 2015 it was a round of the World Cup, the only one in Italy, and it has been part of the Women’s WorldTour since that series began in 2016. Since the return, the only year without a race has been 2020.

Why the race is named after Alfredo Binda

Binda was born in Cittiglio. He won the world road race title three times, in 1927, 1930 and 1932, and the Giro d’Italia five times, a total only Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx have matched. The Giro’s organizers paid him 22,500 lire, the same as the winner’s prize, to stay away from the 1930 race.

He was nicknamed La Gioconda, the Italian name of the Mona Lisa, for the elegance of his riding. From 1948 to 1961 he directed the Italian national team. He died in 1986, so the race that carries his name was run in his home town for the last twelve years of his life.

The climbs of Casale and Orino

The race is decided on a circuit of about 17.6 kilometers around Cittiglio, covered five times in 2024 and 2026 and six times in 2025. Each lap has a short, steep climb to Casale and then a more gradual one of 4 kilometers to Orino, which tops out 7.5 kilometers from the finish. The downhill and the long finishing straight give a chasing group time to come back, and the race has ended both in solo wins and in sprints.

The start is not fixed: the race set off from Maccagno in 2023 and 2024 and from Luino in 2026. In 2026 overnight snow took the climb of Masciago Primo out of the opening part and shortened the race to 146 kilometers. The UCI has called it the women’s version of Il Lombardia.

Maria Canins and Marianne Vos: four wins each

Canins won in 1984, 1985, 1990 and 1992. Marianne Vos won in 2009, 2010 and 2012, and a fourth time in 2019, ten years after the first. Emma Pooley won the first World Cup edition in 2008 and won again in 2011. Lizzie Deignan won in 2015 and 2016, Kasia Niewiadoma in 2018, and Elisa Longo Borghini in 2013 and 2021.

Five wins in a row for Trek, three for Elisa Balsamo

Longo Borghini’s second win, in 2021, was the first of five in a row for the team then called Trek-Segafredo and now Lidl-Trek. Elisa Balsamo won in 2022 in the world champion’s jersey. In 2023 Shirin van Anrooij attacked 25 kilometers from the finish and held off the group by 23 seconds for her first professional win. Balsamo won the sprint behind her for second place.

In 2024 Balsamo beat the world champion Lotte Kopecky and Puck Pieterse in the sprint. In 2025 four riders who had attacked on the Orino climb still had a small gap at the start of the last kilometer and were caught in the final corner. Balsamo won the sprint from Blanka Vas and Cat Ferguson, her third win in four years.

Karlijn Swinkels ends the run in 2026

In 2026 six riders went clear on the descent into Cittiglio with a little more than a lap to go. Two of them, Silvia Persico and Eleonora Gasparrini, were teammates of Karlijn Swinkels at UAE Team ADQ, and they pulled the group to the foot of Casale. Anna van der Breggen set a hard pace on Casale and again on Orino, and three riders were left to sprint for the win: Van der Breggen, Swinkels and Mie Bjørndal Ottestad.

Swinkels closed down Ottestad’s attack at the start of the last kilometer and won the sprint, her first WorldTour victory, at 27. She had started the day with orders to wait for the sprint. Vas led in the next group 47 seconds later, and the race had its first winner from outside the Trek team since Vos in 2019.

This is the first major climbing test of the European spring, run over rolling terrain north of Milan where the foothills of the Alps meet the lakes. The race rewards riders who can handle repeated short climbs, positioning battles on narrow roads, and the kind of tactical patience that turns into explosive acceleration. It often produces a select group by the final laps, and the winner usually emerges from a late attack or a reduced sprint.