Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) has confirmed her early-season 2026 race programme, pivoting away from Tour de France Femmes leadership to build her calendar around the Spring Classics and a mid-April track appearance in Hong Kong.
The schedule, which opens at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday, stacks one-day objectives across cobbles, mixed terrain and the Ardennes before concluding with the Vuelta a España in May. It follows a 2025 season in which a lingering knee injury, a fractured vertebra and physiological struggles under strict GC weight-management protocols combined to derail Kopecky's stage-race ambitions.
Kopecky's confirmed 2026 schedule
Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2026-02-28 | |
| 2026-03-07 | |
| 2026-03-15 | |
| 2026-03-18 | |
| 2026-03-21 | |
| 2026-04-02 | |
| 2026-04-05 | |
| 2026-04-13 | |
| 2026-04-17/19 | |
| 2026-04-26 | |
| 2026-05-03/10 |
Kopecky has won the Tour of Flanders on three occasions (2022, 2023, 2025) and a fourth title is a stated target.
As her recent track form in Belgium suggested, the Hong Kong UCI Track World Cup is a purposeful addition. Slotted between Paris-Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, it serves as part of the qualification pathway for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The logistics: a round trip to East Asia mid-Classics block carries travel fatigue that could blunt her Ardennes punch.
Kopecky remains under contract with SD Worx-Protime through 2028. The team's management has backed her return to a Classics-heavy focus, and she has credited partner Axel Merckx, the former professional rider, with providing stability during her reset. "He knows what cycling involves and what you have to do for it," she told Sporza at the start of January.
The Vuelta, her sole stage race before the summer, rounds out the first half of the year. After that, her second-half targets remain unconfirmed.
Cover image credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com
