[Cyclisme] Marie Schreiber at home

The SD World-Protime team, even reduced in number, will be quite far from a peloton gathered around Luxembourg for two days of racing with the two events of the Elsy Jacobs festival.

It is a tradition, a race now firmly inscribed in the history of Luxembourg cycling. A small institution. We remember the first edition, in Garnich in 2008 where the Italian Monia Bacaille had beaten the Luxembourgeois Nathalie Lamborelle in the sprint while Christine Majerus finished fourth.

It will be curious to say the least, strange to see an Elysy Jacobs festival leaving without Christine Majerus, which was so far, of all editions, of all the fights on roads which she knew like her pocket. As a member of the organizing club organizing of SAF Cessange, the former multiple national champion put all her heart into it, even if traditionally, the date, located a week after the end of the spring classics, did not suit him.

The now retired was viscerally attached to this race which she had ended up winning the final general classification in 2017, which is never the easiest way when you evolve at home. Because yes, the Elysy Jacobs festival which this year offers two events of a day of category 1.1 distinct from each other, was at its peak, a three -day stages test.

It even belonged to the Pro Series category, a binding label for the organizers. Then came the time of disillusionment with the emergence on the same date of the Tour of Spain which will also start on Sunday.

The evolution of the female calendar has its perverse effects. It is possible to note that the valiant organizers have difficulty experienced this unfair competition when they had at least disabled to make their ordeal what it had become. With great ingenuity and work.

Hence this steep and trenched decision, last year to stop the race by stages and offer two category 1.2 events. This had not prevented the Elysy Jacobs festival from continuing to bring together a beautiful peloton, settled the two days in the sprint by the Polish Marta Lach, then teammate of Nina Berton.

A year later, Marta Lach is still on the starting list while the two day races went back to category 1.1. But the Polish is now the teammate of a certain Marie Schreiber.

SD World with four girls

Obviously, even reduced to four units, the SD World-Protime team of the current national champion will be the big team present at the start. With big names even if unlike what she had planned, the world champion Lotte Kopecky will not be at the start. On the eve of Liège-Bastogne-Liège that she finished fifth, the winner of the last Tour des Flanders explained on Belgian television her desire to come and align herself at the Elsy Jacobs festival, just to extend her spring season that she deemed too restricted in number of days of racing (only eight days …). Finally, she was changing herself in the aftermath of the Doyenne and preferred to return to her rest week since Monday.

Obviously, the presence of its namesake, the Czech Julia Kopecky, will not be equivalent, but the Dutch team of Marie Schreiber aligns the Italian Barbara guarisichi (34 years) who tried her at the Gravel, but she finished this fourth season of the Grand Prix de l’Escaut. It has nine successes. On the other hand, Marta Lach, who had therefore imposed herself on Saturday, and Sunday in 2024, won little Nokere-Koerse here.

As for Marie Schreiber, the vice-champion of the world hopes of cyclo-cross, she has only two road races behind her. It will be recalled that she has led the Grand Prix of the Scheldt for a long time for its recovery and that it already has a good condition. Even if the robustness of adversity is very relative for these two days of shopping, let us remember, distinct from each other, the SD World-Protime team will again be the number one attraction.

Let us also note the presence of a beautiful UNO-X team with the Italian Maria Giulia Confalloniei, sixth of the last Paris-Roubaix.

Finally, Frank Schleck will supervise a national team (Liv Wenzel and the Sisters Barthels, Maïté and Layla) mixed with Austria. Four Luxembourgers will therefore be present in 2025 on the Elsy Jacobs festival.