Baloise Ladies Tour: Nienke Veenhoven holds off Barbara Guarischi to win stage 2 in Olsene

Nienke Veenhoven (Visma-Lease a Bike) won the mass sprint on stage 2 of the Baloise Ladies Tour and secured the first pro victory of her career.

The 21-year-old held off Barbara Guarischi (SD Worx-Protime) by a bike length, and Karolina Kumiega (KDM-Pack Cycling) in third.

With just 500 metres to go on the fifth and final pass of the finish line in Olsene, Visma-Lease a Bike led the swarm of riders with a strong pull by Martina Fidanza to set up Veenhoven's win.

"Martina pulled super hard. I really struggled to keep her wheel," Veenhoven said about the final sprint in a team statement.

"On the final stretch I was able to do my own sprint and then I was able to lift my hands to celebrate for the first time as a professional. I'm very happy with my first pro win."

Race leader Charlotte Kool (Picnic-PostNL) retained the top overall position with a seventh-place finish on the third day of racing. With bonus seconds as stage winner, Veenhoven jumped six spots to second overall, now 5 seconds behind Kool. Prologue winner Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) remained eight seconds back, but now in third overall, while and Ellen Van Dijk (Lidl-Trek) was 10 seconds back in fourth.

At 127.3km in distance, stage 2 is the longest of the five days of racing, just 100 metres longer than stage 1. Scattered on the route were only a few rises, just two small categorised climbs. There were also six sectors of cobblestones, for just under 6km, in the opening half of the race, the longest stretch of cobbles at 1.9km ridden twice at Huisepontweg.

Just seven kilometres into the stage, five riders got away - Matilde Vitillo (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Aidi Gerde Tuisk (Team Coop-Repsol), Léa Stern (KDM-Pack Cycling), Rose Kloese (WV Schijndel) and Natalie Quinn (USA National Team).

The quintet built a lead of 2:25 as they passed over the second and final climb, the Nokereberg (300 metres at 5.5%) with 69km to go. Once through the Nokeredorpstraat and Herlegemstraat sectors of cobbles, the second half of the race was underway, and the cobbles were in the rear view mirror, with the finishing circuit approaching.

With the final 60km to go, third-placed Van Dijk went down. She was back in the peloton, and the chase went into full gear on the first of five finish circuits with 42km to go, the margin to the breakaway reduced to under 50 seconds.

Over the next flat 10km, the gap had completely collapsed and the peloton was all together. The pack passed through the second and final intermediate sprint, no bonus seconds on offer, however, and the next flurry of attacks followed, sparked by Bäckstedt. A large group of 11 riders gained a small gap over the peloton, Femke Markus (SD Worx-Protime) pushing the pace, but the efforts subsided after 5km.

The next riders to attack were Henrietta Colborne (Velopro-Alphamotorhomes) and Febe Jooris (UAE Development Team), who had two bottles packed into her jersey back pocket, 22km and two circuits to go. Once Jooris secured her bottles, she and the British rider opened a 20-second gap across the next 4km, climbing a large bridge to signal one-and-a-half circuits remaining.

Once the bell lap was underway, the lead duo made glances behind them and could see the peloton making inroads with a steady pace.

With 10km to go, Colbourne rolled back into the peloton, leaving Jooris, the 2024 U23 women's time trial champion of Belgium, alone out front. Jooris' day ended soon after, and SD Worx-Protime's Marcus threw an attack.

Marcus still had a small gap as she powered along the main road into Olsene with 5.5km to go, the peloton being driven by Canyon-Sram Zondacrypto, Visma-Lease a Bike and Picnic-PostNL, Marike Meert (VolkerWessels) able to bridge to Marcus.

The peloton overtook the lead duo with 3.2km to go and the sprinters jockeyed for position for the sprint finish.

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