'It was too late' - Blocked in during final sprint left Elisa Balsamo unable to react to rival sprinters at Ronde van Brugge

On the Ronde van Brugge podium, surprise winner Carys Lloyd (Movistar) was surrounded by Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) and Nienke Veenhoven (Visma-Lease a Bike), the runner-up Italian admitting that while her team's lead-out was strong, she was blocked in and then unable to react in the sprint to be able to take the win.

The top teams had different approaches to the mass sprint as Visma-Lease a Bike massed at the front with more than 10km to go, while Lidl-Trek stayed out of the wind and waited until the penultimate kilometre.

“It was sunny, then it was really cold, then it was hailing and then raining. At the end, everyone was just freezing. As a team, we really took care of each other, and the lead-out was really good. Just in the last moment, I was a little bit closed and I couldn't start my sprint when I wanted. I had to wait a little bit, and then it was too late,” explained Balsamo.

Balsamo still had two teammates in front of her until 400 metres to go, a perfect position on paper. However, since Clara Copponi went alongside the barriers on the left side of the road, there was no room for Balsamo to go around and react when Lloyd launched her sprint at the 200-metre sign.

“Of course I’m a bit disappointed, but my start of the season was not the best one and I’m happy to be back on the podium in an important race,” said Balsamo after her first WorldTour podium of the season.

For Veenhoven, it was the first WorldTour classic podium of her entire career. Her team had drilled it at the front of the peloton in the run-in to Bruges, leaving Veenhoven to follow wheels on her own on the final kilometre, and she had to stay behind Balsamo until the last 100 metres.

“It was our goal to fight for the podium. We approached the sprint in a good way; we started to come together really early and take the lead in the front. From then, I surfed a bit on the Lidl-Trek train, and I was a bit boxed in in the end, but I am happy that I could find a way out and finish it off for the girls with a podium.”

Both Balsamo and Veenhoven had hoped for crosswind action to break the race apart, but several attempts to force echelons all came to nothing.

“It was a hectic race, and in the end, it was all a bit for nothing, really. I think that the wind came from the right direction, but a bit less strong than expected. On the one hand, that’s a shame, on the other hand, we had a nice mass sprint,” Veenhoven took the positives from the race.

The race also saw Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) beaten in a sprint for the first time since July 2024. Like Visma-Lease a Bike, her team had formed a train early on and paid the price as Barbara Guarischi had to drop off Wiebes near the front of the peloton with 1.2km still to go. Wiebes drifted back a few positions to stay out of the wind, and inside the flamme rouge, the Dutch champion opted for the left side of the road, barging shoulders with Lloyd, who chose to stay in the middle of the road.

Wiebes slotted in behind Veenhoven, but with Maike van der Duin (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) and Megan Jastrab (UAE Team ADQ) winding up their sprint next to her, the superstar was simply boxed in and had no room to launch her own sprint, rolling across the finish line in ninth place.

Ahead of the UAE Tour Women, Wiebes had been asked about her unbeaten run and answered that it wasn’t at the forefront of her mind.

“There will be a point that I will be beaten in a sprint and probably the media thinks a lot about that. But then for me, just focus on the good things and keep on improving and keep on being the best version that I can be,” Wiebes said.

Now that the spell is broken, Wiebes’ next opportunity to show her sprinting prowess is Sunday’s Gent-Wevelgem aka. In Flanders Fields.

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