At the sign-in for stage 1 of the RideLondon Classique in Saffron Walden, Rebecca Koerner (Uno-X Mobility) was easy to spot in the red-and-white jersey of the Danish national champion. The 23-year-old will wear a different jersey on stage 2, though: She went into the breakaway and won all three QOM sprints, putting her in the orange-and-blue QOM jersey.
“We wanted to have an aggressive race and be out front with at least one rider. Luckily, I was the one who got to get away. I've really been looking forward to getting into a real breakaway, and today I succeeded, so I'm really happy,” Koerner said in the post-stage interview.
“It would have been better to have more people out there, but the two of us cooperated well, and we had a nice day together. In the end, I managed to get what I came for, I’m happy about that,” Koerner said about her day ahead of the pack on the Essex roads.
The Dane is another lateral entrant into women’s cycling: In her youth, she practiced high diving and had won three Danish championships at age 18.
“It would be nice to keep the jersey also after tomorrow, but we will have to see how the stage goes tomorrow,” she said.
There are no QOMs on the final stage in the centre of London, and stage 2 has the same number of QOMs as stage 1. This means that even if someone were to win all stage 2 QOMs, they could at most draw equal to Koerner, putting the GC position into play as a tiebreaker.
Koerner lost 20 seconds on the uphill finish in Colchester and is 54th overall, 22 seconds behind stage winner Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime), and the QOM classification could even come down to bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint in London. But if Koerner manages to snatch just one QOM point on stage 2, she only has to finish the race to win the orange jersey.