On paper, Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) winning stage 1 of the Tour of Britain Women wasn’t a surprise on Wednesday. Once again, the fastest sprinter in women’s cycling prevailed. But the team had gone into the stage with multiple options and only decided to go all-in on a sprint relatively late – though that decision was sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Once a strong group had gone clear and we had the right riders in there, we waited for quite a long time to see whether or not the stage could be decided from a breakaway. When it became clear that this wouldn’t be the case, we made the decision to keep the race together and bring Lorena to the finish in the best possible position," explained Christian Kos, the team’s sport director at the British stage race.
"Perfect teamwork today, and we’re very happy with the result.”
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SD Worx-Protime had five riders in the reduced peloton of 32, and only Femke Gerritse had not made it. Wiebes was joined by Mischa Bredewold, Lotte Kopecky, Julia Kopecký (no relation), and Steffi Häberlin. Bredewold, Kopecky, and Häberlin jumped after the other teams’ attacks in the final 30km.
The presence of Wiebes in the peloton behind meant that they rarely had the opportunity to get a breakaway going. Once an SD Worx-Protime rider had made contact with a move, the other riders stopped pushing, as they expected Wiebes’ teammate to just sit on and didn’t want to drag them to the line.
“Every time the race split, we were always well represented in the different groups. The team did a great job today," Wiebes said later.
For a brief time with about 12km to go, Häberlin and Bredewold were in a front group of four together with Aude Biannic (Movistar) and Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek). However, Markus, in particular, was unwilling to commit to a move with Bredewold, who is a much stronger sprinter.
"After the intermediate sprint, the pace went up again and it stayed hard until around five kilometres from the finish. On the narrow roads, it was sometimes difficult to move towards the front of the reduced peloton again, so staying well positioned was important,” said Wiebes.
“Steffi Häberlin and Julia Kopecky first kept the pace high. Then it was up to Lotte Kopecky and Mischa Bredewold to take over the lead-out. Lotte brought Mischa and me perfectly into the final corner with around 500 metres to go. Mischa then kept the speed high, and with 200 metres remaining I was able to launch my sprint. It was executed really well.”
Chiara Consonni (Canyon-SRAM) finished runner-up on the stage, beating Josie Nelson (Picnic-PostNL) to second place by half a bike length. The Italian sprinter wasn’t hugely surprised by SD Worx-Protime’s multi-pronged tactics.
“They are a really strong team, and they can plan different things, not only the sprint with Lorena. I think they also want to be good in the GC with Lotte and Mischa. We tried to fight with Cille [Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig], she was also super strong on the climb. Maybe we try something different in the next days with a breakaway from far out,” said Consonni.
Stage 2 is a 110.5km route from Clitheroe that suits for a sprint finish beside Blackpool's famous Mirror Ball.
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