Lorena Wiebes overcomes messy lead-out to sprint to victory on opening stage of Tour de Pologne Women

The peloton's eminent sprinter Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) sprinted to another win on the opening stage of the Tour de Pologne Women, navigating a wet, crash-affected finish in Zamość.

The rain fell on and off on Friday afternoon, and as the sprint opened up in the final kilometre, a crash on a roundabout caused havoc in the peloton and broke up Wiebes' lead-out, with Marta Lach crashing alongside several other riders. Chiara Consonni (Canyon-SRAM), who won this race overall last year, also crashed.

Wiebes briefly lost the wheel of teammate Barbara Guarischi, who was then leading her out solo, but was able to get back up to speed, come round her teammate and gallop to the win by a fair margin.

Guarischi held on to take second, with Marthe Truyen (Fenix-Premier Tech) taking third behind the SD Worx duo.

Earlier in the day, five riders were in the break of the stage – Virginia Bortoli (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo), Martyna Szczęsna (MAT Atom Deweloper Wrocław), Eleonora La Bella (Aromitalia Vaiano), Grace Arlandson (Aegis x Leaders of Enchantment) and Natalia Krześlak (TKK Pacific-Nestlé Fitness) – but they were brought back well in advance of the expected sprint finish.

Wiebes will now wear the leader's jersey into stage 2, another expected sprint day given its pancake-flat parcours.

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