There's no question that Lorena Wiebes (Netherlands) is one of the fastest women in any peloton right now, no matter what the surface. She out-sprinted her Dutch teammate Marianne Vos to win the 2025 UCI Gravel World Championships for elite women.
Last year at the Gravel Worlds in Belgium, Vos took the gold while Wiebes was happy with a bronze medal. This victory marks the second world title of her career. On the track, Wiebes earned the world title in the Scratch Race in 2024.
This year, Wiebes scored the gold ahead of Vos in a sprint finish in Limburg, using the momentum in a chase group set by trade teammate Julia Kopecký (Czechia).
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In fact, there were seven Dutch riders in the final top 10, and for a while, with just 1,500 metres to go, it looked like the first rider across the line clad in orange would be Shirin Van Anrooij in a solo charge.
However, Kopecký led a chase group for about eight kilometres, and then an acceleration by Dutch rider Yara Kastelijn closed down Van Anrooij to set up the Wiebes-versus-Vos sprint at the finish.
"When Shirin [Van Anrooij] was in front. I was not sure how to get her back. She's really strong. But luckily, I had my other teammate, Julia Kopecký [of SD Worx-Protime], also there, and she did a really strong race," Wiebes told Cyclingnews at the finish.
"And I mean, it was a big part of her [work for me] to win this rainbow jersey."
Going into the UCI Gravel Worlds last year, she had 17 road wins and one on gravel. The bronze at Worlds in 2024 was two spots better than 2023 in Italy, so she was inspired to keep moving up the podium.
Entering the south Limburg race, at 131km with approximately 1,200 metres of climbing, she had 24 road wins as well as the victory at the UCI Gravel World Series stop at Marly Grav Race in the Netherlands.
Her road wins were substantial ones at Milan-San Remo, Brugge-De Panne, Gent-Wevelgem, and two stages at the Giro, as well as two more at the Tour.
The Dutch team had done a recon of the course, and she was convinced that she needed to be in any front group with 15km to go, which was the toughest climb on the rolling course, the Bronsdalweg, a 1km climb with an average gradient of 7.2% and a peak of over 8%.
"I knew exactly how this climb was. [Vos] attacked a couple of times before on the climbs, but I knew also on this climb that you need to pace it a little bit, because otherwise you blow yourself completely up," Wiebes said about the final big climb of the day at Bronsdalweg with 15km to go.
"I pushed till the end, and I was happy to be there still with the others."
Seven Dutch riders represented the lead nine once on the Bronsdalweg, including Vos and Wiebes, joined by national teammates Femke De Vries, Femke Markus, Yara Kastelijn, Larissa Hartog and Van Anrooij. Kopecký was there for Czechia and Silvia Persico for Italy.
It was Kopecký who did most of the work in the chase, with Wiebes in the pack and saving her burst of speed for the final metres. Wiebes said after Van Anrooij took off over the climb, she just had to focus on keeping the pace high to catch her national teammate. It was Kopecký's work at the front of the chase group until 1500 metres to go that helped Wiebes make the pass of Van Anrooij with under 500 metres remaining.
Dutch head coach Laurens Ten Dam said the end of the race did "look strange" because it was just a race.
"The depth of the team was crazy, you know, seven in the top 10. It's a gravel race, so tactics look strange, but at the end, it's also more or less individual, you know. I want them to have an orange jersey win, but it's a race and I think the two strongest were in the top two steps."
Wiebes is under contract with SD Worx-Protime for three more seasons, most of that focused on Spring Classics and a mix of stage races. She hoped to showcase her first-ever rainbow jersey at gravel races in 2026.
"Actually, I hope to come back, for example, to Girona, to do The Traka. I really like that race, and also the UCI gravel race here in Valkenberg," Wiebes said about wearing rainbow stripes next season. "But it really depends on the road races, but I hope to show it a couple of times."
This past season, Vos wore the world champion's jersey for a victory at the UCI Gravel World Championships in Germany at 3RIDES. The previous two world champions, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (France) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland), did not compete in gravel races in the year they held the title.
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