Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) went into stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes as the big favourite for a sprint victory, and the European champion came through to win the stage after her team worked all day to keep the breakaway in check and lead her out for the sprint.
At the stage winner’s press conference, Wiebes reiterated that she did not feel extra pressure during the stage, and she thanked her teammates for their support in bringing her into a position to take the win.
“It’s more that the team works so hard for it that you want to finish it off for them. You don’t want to disappoint them. I know how hard they worked, chasing all day long, and I saw their happiness after the finish line; it means a lot to me. I’m happy with my team, it really feels like a family,” Wiebes explained.
SD Worx-Protime had planned to contest the general classification with Lotte Kopecky and Anna van der Breggen, but after Kopecky had to abandon the Giro d’Italia Women due to persistent back pain and had trouble training in the weeks between the Giro and the Tour, the team changed plans, opting to focus on stage victories instead – and this gave Wiebes’ sprint skills a higher priority.
“If we had real GC ambitions, then we probably wouldn’t have chased all day today. If GC was a priority, then we’d need to save energy for the real mountain days, so that changes a lot in our tactics.
"Before the decision about the GC was made, I knew that I wasn’t here to have sprint opportunities in this Tour, so every opportunity I get now is really nice,” said Wiebes.
While SD Worx-Protime may have forgone their ambitions to win the Tour de France, Van der Breggen is still positioned in seventh place overall at 21 seconds behind overall leader Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike).
Although a break of four riders took the maximum points, the intermediate sprint in Vern-d’Anjou was still contested by Wiebes and Vos. Vos has won the Tour de France Femmes green jersey in 2022 and 2024 and is Wiebes’ closest competitor in the points classification.
Although Wiebes doesn’t have the green jersey as a target, she also doesn’t want to give away points to Vos.
“At the intermediate sprint, it’s not sprinting all-out. I saw Marianne was about to do it, so I also went. We made quite a short sprint, so that was okay,” Wiebes said.
The 13 points from the intermediate sprint and 50 points for the stage victory compared saw Wiebes take the green jersey off Vos who instead took the yellow jersey herself.
Wiebes is now leading the points classification with 130 points compared to Vos’ 112 and is looking forward to another sprint on stage 4.
“I hope that the girls recover a bit for tomorrow. If you need to chase with four riders, they chased more than 100km, it will be a hard day for them. I know this gives them a lot of motivation to keep on doing this,” Wiebes said.
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