The Classics often see riders evolve from emerging talents to bona fide stars. Here are a few names to watch out for this season.
Cor Vos
It happens every season. We get to the Ardennes, scan the lists of results from the Cobbled Classics, and find one name, relatively new to road cycling, on the first page of most races. In 2025, it was Puck Pieterse; in 2023, it was Pfeiffer Georgi. The names may already be recognizable, but they really solidify themselves as a rider to watch over the course of the spring and the following seasons.
The 2026 season feels especially significant for little-known riders. As the bigger names cherry-pick which races they will attend this year, the door opens for new riders to make their mark on the iconic one-day events. The 2025 season started in a haze of unknowns due to the amount of transfers, while the 2026 season has its own major question marks. As resources grow for younger riders, who will impress this spring? Which riders should already be on your radar to look out for as we dive into Classics season? And with star leaders taking their time to train and target specific events, which former helpers can rise to the occasion?
Cat Ferguson
We’re starting off with some low-hanging fruit, as the Movistar rider has already taken two wins before March 1. Ferguson joined the professional ranks in 2025, but raced a handful of races for the Spanish team at the tail end of 2024. Of the six race days she did with Movistar in the final months of the season, she won two of them, finished second and seventh in two others, and in between won both the junior time trial and road race titles at the World Championships.
Ferguson is a once-in-a-generation type of talent, but Movistar has been careful about how they race her. When she signed with the team, she was only 18, and in the interest of holding onto her for many, many years, they tried to keep her from feeling too much pressure too soon.
That meant that she only raced six of the Spring Classics last season, from the Trofeo Alfredo Binda (where she finished third) through Paris-Roubaix Femmes. This year, she started her Classics campaign at the Omloop Nieuwsblad, perhaps a sign that Movistar wants to lean on her a little more. It’s clear she can excel at the spring races; the only thing holding her back is age. At 19 (she will be 20 on April 27), making sure she doesn’t do too much too soon is crucial to her long-term success. Still, if Movistar takes her to a bulk of the Classics, she will be hard to miss.
Nienke Veenhoven
One of Visma-Lease a Bike’s young talents, Veenhoven, had a few notable WorldTour results in 2025. She finished sixth at Brugge-De Panne and fifth in the Copenhagen Sprint, and she had a few good days at the Simac Ladies Tour. Already this season, Veenhoven finished third and fourth on two stages of the UAE Tour.
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