Easy, right? Of course, it’s Lotte Kopecky of SD Worx, who added to her reputation as the best all-around rider in the world when she won stage 3 of the recent UAE Tour by winning her first-ever mountain climb, the ascent to the summit of the tough Jebel Hafeet (10.8km @ 6.8%). She had already proved that she could climb in last year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift,
Put another way, all things being equal, Kopecky carries more weight up the mountain. Her SD Worx teammate Demi Vollering, who won the climb up the Tourmalet last year, stands at 172m and weighs an estimated 58kg. So Kopecky will probably never beat her or others of similar build on the Tourmalet, but based on her performance on the Jebel Hafeet she will come closer this year and will be a worry for her rivals on other mountains.
In the UAE Tour, she also led out Lorena Wiebes in the first two stages to two sprint victories, enabling her teammate to dominate the points classification. And who finished second in the green jersey race? Yup, Kopecky. And let’s recall that she won last year’s TdFF Škoda Green Jersey, came in third in the last-stage ITT, behind teammates Marlen Reusser and Vollering, and finished second in the GC.
when she finished a respectable sixth in the queen stage, which ended with an ascent of the formidable Tourmalet (17.2km @ 7.3%).
But winning a long, steep climb was always a challenge for the 28-year-old Belgian because, let’s face it, she does not have the ideal build of a natural climber, standing 1.7m and weighing in at 66kg. Climbers are generally built like two-time Tour winners Tadej Pogačar, who also weighs 66kg but is 6cm taller than Kopecky, and Jonas Vingegaard (only 60kg @ 1.75m). They both carry less weight per cm and are therefore able to generate more power with every pedal stroke.
