A changed rider, the same determination, and no more camping chairs – Elisa Longo Borghini 10 years on from her first Tour of Flanders victory

Ten years ago, Elisa Longo Borghini made history as the first Italian woman to win the Tour of Flanders. She was 23, it was her first win in Belgium – at the biggest Belgian race of all – and one that rocketed her to the top echelons of Classics riders, this young, punchy Italian.

A decade and 40 wins later, Longo Borghini is back at Flanders as the defending champion, and clear favourite, off the back of a win at Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday. At 33, she's no less hungry to win, but she is a more mature cyclist, one with more appreciation for what she did that day back in 2015.

"When I won my first Flanders, I was a kid. I was 23 years old and I did not realise what I did," Elisa Longo Borghini told Cyclingnews in an exclusive interview ahead of the 2025 edition.

"I was just like 'wow, I won Flanders' and then I was like 'oh, I won Flanders'. Then the years passed by and they kept saying, every time I stepped on the podium, that I won Flanders, and I was like 'oh, that's actually a big, big victory'. "

Longo Borghini has won a lot more since Flanders in 2015, including most of the biggest races on the calendar, but it would take her nine years to repeat her victory in Oudenaarde. That time, a year ago now, she knew what she was doing.

"When I was about to win last year, I was more conscious of the weight that Flanders carries with it, and I was more conscious of what Flanders is, what it means for cycling, what heritage it brings with it," she said. "Definitely winning now is winning in a more conscious way than just randomly crossing the line as the first one and being like 'oh I won'."

Longo Borghini's description of winning is not to say that the racing was any easier back then, perhaps it just felt less significant. She had to beat the likes of Annemiek van Vleuten and Anna van der Breggen to take that victory, after all, so there was no lack of competition.

"It's not that different, because the people that were strong, were really strong," she said. "I don't know what the others would answer to this question, but personally, it was just that I was not really mature enough to understand what was going on, and I was more like a 20-year-old girl enjoying the fact of being in Belgium and riding my bike."

The complete transformation of Flanders as a race has surely helped riders, especially the non-Belgian or Dutch riders, recognise just how important and big the race is. 

"Once [at Flanders] we got changed in the square on camping chairs. Most of the teams did not have a bus. You had to look for a bar to get your jersey on," Longo Borghini recalled. "And now everyone comes to the race with a bus, with a truck, there are more people around, there is more attention. I think it has hugely changed from even five years ago, not even ten years ago."

New team, same dream

For Longo Borghini, things are different from even a year ago. She comes to the Classics in a new team, having left Lidl-Trek after six seasons to join UAE Team ADQ, and start what she expects to be the final chapter of her career.

"It was a very hard decision indeed," she said. "I felt well in that team, and you also build relationships with people when you are so long in that team. Of course, I have my friends there still, I have my husband too, so you know. But sometimes you need to do stuff for yourself, and you need to go your own way."

Three months into the year, Longo Borghini is pretty well adapted to her new squad, made easier by the Italian feel at the team, and the fact she brought teammates with her in Brodie Chapman and Elynor Bäckstedt. That's not to say it wasn't strange at first, though.

"It was pretty weird – when I won in UAE on Jebel Hafeet, the first thing I did after the finish was go to the Lidl swanny, and I was like 'oh no, sorry' but I did avoid a diplomatic incident by being like 'sorry, not you' but I could see it was likewise for her. She was like 'Elisaaa! No…'," she recalled with a laugh. 

"It was a big change, and I think I needed a change. I needed a new environment, a new stimulus, because I think this will be my last four years, and I wanted something different. I'm very thankful for what Lidl-Trek and Trek-Segafredo gave me for the past six years, but I needed to make a step somewhere else. So I'm very happy with my decision."

Longo Borghini is also in a different place mentally than she was in the run-in to Flanders last year. Speaking immediately after the win in 2024, Longo Borghini described how she'd had to rebuild from a "destroyed" rider to rediscover her best after a deeply challenging 2023. 

Unlike this year, where she'll start on Sunday with a big goal of the UAE Tour ticked off and a win at Dwars door Vlaanderen fresh in her pocket, Longo Borghini started last year's Flanders as a bit of an underdog against the seemingly imperious SD Worx-Protime, but something just clicked. 

"Everything came together," she said. "I really had good legs that day. The team played it super well, and I had a teammate in front, Shirin [van Anrooij], and from the team car we were guided very well, so it was truly a team commitment."

The win was then the starting off point for a strong year, which would see the Italian win the Giro d'Italia for the first time, and seemingly back at her very best level.

"I went back to back from Sunday to [Wednesday], from winning Flanders to winning Brabantse Pijl. I was just in a very good shape, and a very good mental space. Then I had a tough Vuelta, because I came out of the Classics and Ardennes campaign pretty tired. So after the Vuelta, I really had to take some days off to reshuffle and reset everything. I went on altitude and prepared for the Giro. I was just trusting the process and doing the right things, focusing first on recovering and then on training again with calmness."

From the outside, that Flanders win last year may have seemed like it lifted a weight off of Longo Borghini's shoulders, but the Italian was hesitant to characterise victory like that – to her, it's much more. 

"Winning races is not relief, it's pure joy," she said. "It's nice, because you get to savour the victory, and then you become even more hungry. It's kind of a strange feeling that I have: the more I win, the hungrier I get for winning. It's like a loop. It's just natural, and I want to win, of course, but it's not becoming an obsession."

Things might be different for Longo Borghini this year, but she's still driven by that same passion for racing and riding.

"I always enjoyed winning and racing in general, and I always carry with me that joy of riding the bike, as I had when I was a kid," she said. "I think it's that magic that makes you feel good on the bike – well, you're not good every time – but it makes you have such a passion for your bike and your job and everything. I am joyful when I'm on my bike, I just love what I'm doing and I feel privileged to have this job."

Big goals in her final chapter

Though Longo Borghini isn't rushing to think about retirement – she's still clearly one of the best riders in the peloton – she knows she won't keep racing forever, and she has four more years to get as much out of her cycling career as possible.

The Italian has won pretty much all of the biggest races at this point, but there are still a few she hasn't ticked off. This year, she's set her sights on three main goals: the Ardennes, the Giro, and the world championships. Among her illustrious list of wins, she's never pulled on the rainbow jersey, and Rwanda hopefully offers a good chance.

"Well, I've never been the world champion because somebody else was always stronger," she said. "Every time you go to the world championships you try to win and you play your cards your best, but if you don't succeed, what can you do? It's a parcours, the one in Rwanda, that really suits my characteristics, so I would really like to be in good shape there.

"I'd love, once – maybe it's a dream, who knows – to win the World Championships. Dreaming is for free."

For Grand Tours, Longo Borghini will focus on defending her Giro title, rather than a GC bid at the Tour de France Femmes.

"As an Italian, I love the Giro. I'm very proud of being Italian, and racing in my own country is important to me," she said. "It's not that I don't like the Tour – don't get me wrong, I love the Tour, and I love the media interest that it creates around women's cycling and I will be at the start of the Tour de France, and I will be hunting stages, but for GC, I did choose the Giro this year."

Before all of that, though, Longo Borghini is hoping for a strong Classics period. She's finished on the podium at Liège-Bastogne-Liège three times and never won, so that's a big goal, as is Flèche Wallone, where her podium tally is up to four. That doesn't mean, however, that she's going to race this Sunday with one eye on the Ardennes.

"I won't be at the start of Flanders thinking about Liège. When I start a race, I always try to win it, because otherwise it's better you stay at home on your sofa, if you don't believe you can win a race. I will try my best and I will do my absolute 100% to do something nice, but we can't predict the outcome, I will just promise to give my 100%."

As for Flanders, Longo Borghini knows she can win, and that the high level in the peloton will suit her well in the finale. But what she's learnt about the significance of Flanders in the last 10 years since her first win here has also taught her that winning is important, but not everything. 

"For a rider like me, for sure [more aggressive is better] I like when we come down to punches, so now it's a really big fight. I really like when things get spiced up and we can really dig deep, so it's gonna be a very nice year I think," she said.

"And if it doesn't work out well, it's only bike racing."

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