It was a long day and a hectic finale, but Team DSM controlled stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift perfectly to deliver Lorena Wiebes to her second stage win of the race.
The fifth stage panned out to be a somewhat formulaic breakaway-then-sprint stage, mainly down to work done by Team DSM, despite being one of the longest days on the bike most of the peloton had ever experienced.
“I think for me it was the longest race I ever did, because with the neutral it was almost 180km and I think I never did that in training either,” Wiebes said. “But the team really took control of this stage and Franziska Koch did a really amazing job in controlling the break, keeping it to three minutes.”
Wiebes previously downplayed the pressure she felt to win, but admitted after stage 5 she felt extra motivation on what was likely the last sprint day of the race.
“It was important today, especially because the team took control from the beginning and all day with Franziska,” she said. “She did really an amazing job so I felt pressure to get the stage. It was the last opportunity, I think, and I’m really happy to take this one.”
A big crash in the peloton in the last 50km was the only real action of much of the stage, but a technical run-in to the line posed a challenge for the sprinters.
“It was pretty chaotic, the final,” Wiebes said. “We aimed for the right u-turn with 1.7km to go and Pfeiffer [Georgi] brought me safely to the good wheels. We came with a lot of speed into that corner and I also was a bit afraid there because I lost my back wheel but luckily I could hold my bike and I was still in a good position out of the corner.
“Then there was also a small mistake in the last 500 metres. You had to go right and luckily I knew it, so the speed went out a bit with 400 metres to go but I was able to react to the girls who were coming behind me and was able to ride the sprint as I wanted.”
Wiebes was one lead-out rider down after her final woman Charlotte Kool abandoned the race on stage 4, but Georgi was able to step into the role with seemingly no detriment to the Dutch rider’s sprint.
“Obviously we missed [Charlotte] for the lead out,” Georgi told Cyclingnews. “But in a lot of races, you have to adapt when you lose people or are out of position, so we knew that I just had to stay with Lorena and try and position her into a good wheel. Obviously I can’t do the kind of punch that Charlotte does so my job was aiming for the hairpin and keeping her safe there and then she could just find her way at the end.”
Wiebes now sits second on the green jersey standings, but the team say that is a competition they are still taking day by day. Going into the last few stages, Wiebes’s attention will turn to surviving to climb and helping GC hope Juliette Labous where she can.
“I am looking forward to tomorrow, what happens, maybe a breakaway a day we will see,” she said. “Then we get into the mountains and I hope I can survive it and help the team for GC.”
