Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) crossed the finish line in tears as her hopes of winning the opening stage at the Tour de France Femmes and claiming the yellow jersey on home soil came to an abrupt end due to a touch of wheels and a mechanical inside 500 metres to go that prevented her from sprinting in The Hague.
An unlucky contact with Anniina Ahtosalo (Uno-X Mobility) in the final sprint caused Wiebes' derailleur to break off her bike. With the chain dragging loosely on the ground, she was forced to sit up and then slowly covered the remaining distance before collapsing to the ground as her teammates did what they could to console their devastated sprinter.
"I saw that her chain and everything was off her bike on the inside, and I know that someone rode into her back wheel. She couldn't sprint because her chain was off, and she was standing still," Vollering told Cyclingnews at the finish line.
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Mischa Bredewold, who was part of the final lead-out, wrapped her arms around a distraught Wiebes as Vollering, Blank Vas, and Niamh Fisher-Black tried to determine what had happened in the final sprint after the team delivered an impeccable lead-out into the final 3km straight away to the finish line.
"Lorena's chain dropped off. We cannot do anything about that. You cannot ride your bike without a chain. It happened in the last couple of hundred metres. The lead-out was going really well, and I know it was super early, but the whole team is so strong, and we made it work, but you need a chain to sprint," Bredewold told Cyclingnews.
"We knew it was going to be super hectic, and that is why we needed to be in front all day, and that was hard. We will go with a re-match tomorrow."
Vas was the closest rider to Wiebes in the sprint when Ahtosalo's front wheel accidentally touched Wiebes' rear wheel, just as Wiebes' had drifted to the right side of the road, the contact causing the derailleur to come loose. She said Wiebes' chain looked broken, but up until that point, everything had gone to perfection.
"We did a good lead-out, and this is very unlucky because I think she had a lot of chances to win today. Of course, this is in her home country so, for sure, she wanted to win. It's just sad because everyone was so nervous. She could not even try, so this is annoying. I hope the bunch will be calmer, and we can try again," Vas told Cyclingnews.
SD Worx-Protime piloted Wiebes perfectly into the final kilometre before an accidental touch of wheels with Ahtosalo appears to have caused the mechanical. Unaware that Wiebes' had stopped pedalling, her teammate Barbara Guarischi started the final lead-out.
However, it was eventual stage winner Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) who came out of her slipstream to take the lead and hold off the challenge from Ahtosalo, Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek), Lotta Henttala (EF-Oatly-Cannondale), and Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike).
"She is frustrated, of course, if you make a big call of this and you are ready to sprint and are in a perfect position and someone touches your back [wheel], then you will be frustrated, of course," SD Worx-Protime team manager, Danny Stam, told Cyclingnews.
"We've known for a long time that we have had a good lead-out train and that we were focused ahead of this stage. We know the first two stages are very good for Lorena. I think we knew exactly how we should do it and it went perfect until she could not pedal anymore."
Wiebes will have another opportunity to sprint on Tuesday's stage 2, 67.9km race from Dordrecht to Rotterdam.
"Tomorrow is a new day, a new sprint, probably, and we hope we can keep the derailleur on. We know we can do good things in the sprint. I'm pretty sure that tomorrow we have a new fight." Stam said.
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