Three in a row for Wiebes in Baloise Ladies Tour

Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) swept up her third win at the Baloise Ladies Tour and 50th UCI victory of her career in the first battle of two stages on Saturday, taking another sprint victory after the break was caught within 11km of the line in Knokke-Heist.

The victory on stage 3, ahead of Amber van der Hulst (Liv Racing Xstra) and Letizia Paternoster (Trek-Segafredo), also extended her lead on the overall making the gap to second-placed Ellen van Dijk (Trek-Segafredo) 20 seconds, up from 11.

“The day started a bit more easy, we were with the whole team in the front,” said Wiebes of the 83km stage from Dutch Cadzand. “There were some attacks early on but nothing stayed away and we were able to take the intermediate sprint.”

After that Jeanne Koorevaar (Liv Racing Xstra) and Clara Lundmark (GT-Krush Tunap) escaped, however with DSM on the chase for their team leader they were reeled back in to deliver another opportunity for Wiebes to wind up her powerful turn of speed.

"Maybe I came a bit too early into the wind, but it was enough to win and finish the teamwork off again,” said Wiebes.

The racing for the day, however, didn't finish with the sprint as still to come was the Saturday evening individual time trial, a discipline the second-placed Van Dijk holds the world title in.

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