SD Worx had to wait until the third day of the Simac Ladies Tour for their first victory as Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich) and Riejanne Markus (Jumbo-Visma) beat the trio of Lotte Kopecky, Lorena Wiebes, and Demi Vollering in the prologue and Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) pipped Wiebes to win the sprint on stage 1.
But after Kopecky's time trial victory, wearing the Belgian time trial champion's jersey on home soil in Leuven, the world road race champion took the leader's jersey. And with Wiebes in third place at 13 seconds and Vollering sixth at 16 seconds, the powerhouse team is in the pole position to defend the overall lead all the way to the end.
Stage 3 through the polders of Flevoland is almost guaranteed to be another sprint, and with a stage win – which would be her team's 58th of 2023 – and the resulting 10-second time bonus, Wiebes could move to within three seconds of the yellow jersey that she won in 2022.
Lorena Wiebes showed last year that she could hold her own in the hilly terrain of southern Limburg, though the stage 4 finish atop the Cauberg will be a challenge for her and could mean that the team will look to Kopecky and Vollering instead.
However, Wiebes should still give it her best up the famous Valkenburg hill in order to stay close in GC and keep options for her team. The final stage will be hard to control, featuring as it does seven ascents of the Emmapiramide and Posbank climbs followed by five laps of a hilly circuit inside Arnhem, and so having three riders at the top of the GC is better than only one or two.
The strongest opposition to the purple-pink-orange-clad superteam will probably come in the yellow and black of Jumbo-Visma: Riejanne Markus is second overall, just two seconds behind Kopecky.
She won last year's Limburg stage solo, showing that she can not only handle the hills but gain time there. Teammate Anna Henderson is not much further down in fourth place at 14 seconds, and finally there's Karlijn Swinkels in 12th place at 26 seconds.
Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-Sram) and Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Deceuninck) briefly had the best time in the time trial, showing their strength against the clock. Bäckstedt is now fifth overall, 15 seconds behind Kopecky.
The 18-year-old may focus on defending her white jersey for leading the U23 classification against an onslaught of three AG Insurance-Soudal-QuickStep riders, though – Ally Wollaston, Marthe Goossens, and Maud Rijnbeek are all within 19 seconds of Bäckstedt, as is Parkhotel Valkenburg's Lieke Nooijen.
In seventh place overall, Schweinberger is 19 seconds down on Kopecky. The 26-year-old Austrian is having a break-out season and will do her utmost to defend her GC position, but moving up past the SD Worx trio is probably too much to ask. Instead, she and her teammates Julie De Wilde, Carina Schrempf, and Yara Kastelijn could target a stage win in Valkenburg or Arnhem.
DSM-Firmenich can look to Pfeiffer Georgi, eighth overall at 23 seconds, and Charlotte Kool in 11th place at 25 seconds. Winning the sprint on stage 3 would put Kool at 15 seconds, but the hilly stages are almost certainly too hard for her – however, Georgi will be in her favourite terrain and must not be underestimated.
Stage 1 winner Balsamo is 28 seconds behind Kopecky after the time trial. Winning stage 3 could move her to 18 seconds, but like Kool, the hilly weekend will probably put her out of contention. Instead, Lidl-Trek will look to Lucinda Brand, 29 seconds adrift, and Tour de l'Avenir Femmes winner Shirin van Anrooij, 41 seconds down, for attacks on the last two stages.
After the last time trial of her career, Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) is 20th overall at 34 seconds. She has said that she isn't going for the overall victory but wants to race aggressively – and the rest of the peloton should know better than to discount her in her farewell race. The Spanish team also has Arlenis Sierra in 25th place at 39 seconds. She's of taking bonus seconds in a sprint and staying with the best on the hills.
Stage 4 finishes up the Cauberg, but the final is well-known and rather formulaic as it is near-impossible to hold off the peloton on the steep climb. The stage will most likely be decided in a sprint up the climb out of Valkenburg, and time gaps will not be large.
Stage 5, however, is 20 km longer than the previous day's stage and also boasts more altitude gain. The opening circuit with the Emmapiramide and Posbank east of Arnhem is run on small, winding roads and therefore very hard to control, and there are hardly any flat sections in the whole stage.
Because of this, it may be most promising for teams like Jumbo-Visma, DSM-Firmenich, Lidl-Trek and others who want to win the Simac Ladies Tour overall to throw everything they have at the seven Posbank laps and trying to split the race and isolate Kopecky, Vollering, and Wiebes. It certainly would make for awesome racing.
