Having won two of the first three stages, Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) is the woman to beat at the Women’s Tour – or indeed in any race that comes down to a sprint. On stage 3, Wiebes showed her strength and versatility while she also capitalized on a lack of cooperation in the day's lead group to take the win in Gloucester. She expressed her intent to make it three in a row as the race heads into stage 4 on Thursday.
Her stage 3 victory, off the heels of her stage 2 win the previous day, was the 10th win of the season for the 23-year-old Dutchwoman. The only times she hasn't won a mass sprint was in Brugge-De Panne when she had to sprint with a broken spoke and on stage 1 of the Women’s Tour when she crashed in a left turn with 300 metres to go.
The stage 3 victory was one that Wiebes had to fight for, however, after the race broke apart on the hills with 24km to go, she and her teammate Megan Jastrab had to chase hard to return to the front. They succeeded, and on top of the stage win, Wiebes also received the yellow leader's jersey as the previous leader Clara Copponi (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) finished over three minutes down.
The lack of cooperation in the front group played a large part in how the race came back together: The 17 riders that were ahead could not get into a rhythm where all or most of them would take turns to try to keep the chasing group at bay. With 34 riders, the chasing group was twice as large, but 19 of these had teammates up ahead.
However, all things were not equal in the front group: Riejanne Markus (Team Jumbo-Visma) had been in the breakaway from the beginning of the stage and couldn’t offer her sprinter Coryn Labecki much assistance. Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo), Grace Brown (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope), Joss Lowden (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team), and Sara Martín were the only riders from their respective teams.
The two teams that arguably had most to gain, stage 2 runner-up Alexandra Manly’s Team BikeExchange-Jayco and Canyon-SRAM with Shari Bossuyt, third on stage 2, had Kristen Faulkner, Elise Chabbey, and Katarzyna Niewiadoma trying to break away from the group several times – this obviously did not help the group cohesion. EF Education-TIBCO-SVB also weren’t taking turns, putting their faith in sprinter Letizia Borghesi who was in the chasing group with Wiebes and 32 others.
The only riders who committed to making the break stick were Team SD Worx’ Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio and Christine Majerus. Moolman-Pasio saw an opportunity to gain time for her GC bid. Majerus had been on the attack earlier in the stage and struggled to keep up with the fresher riders at first – but she could later be seen taking a turn at the front, then making the familiar stirring motion with her index finger, urging the other riders to help.
But as Team DSM, Ceratizit-WNT, Liv Racing Xstra and other teams were chasing the front group with all they had, it was all for nought – the two groups merged on the final ten kilometres, and another Wiebes sprint victory was the result.
The race now heads into Wales: Stage 4 from Wrexham to Welshpool is hilly but could still end in the sprint of a reduced peloton. Wiebes announced after stage 3 that “we will go all-in tomorrow to try to make it three”, expressing confidence in her own climbing abilities.
Even if Wiebes goes on to win stage 4, however, stage 5 with its summit finish on The Black Mountains certain to spell the end of her yellow jersey spell. The 5.5-kilometre climb with an average gradient of 5.6% is simply too much for a sprinter to overcome, meaning that Wiebes will have to wait until stage 6 for her next sprint opportunity.
