Boels Ladies Tour: Lorena Wiebes wins stage 1

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Lorena Wiebes (Parkhotel Valkenburg) continued her breakthrough season with another sprint victory, winning stage 1 of the Boels Ladies Tour. After attacks by Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (CCC-Liv), Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo), and Moniek Tenniglo (Mitchelton-Scott) on the finishing circuit had been brought back, Wiebes was the fastest to the line in the mass sprint, beating Kirsten Wild (WNT-Rotor) and Letizia Paternoster (Trek-Segafredo).

Prologue winner Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) went down in a crash earlier on the stage but got back to the peloton and finished in the same time as Wiebes, defending her leader's jersey. Wiebes is now second overall, three second behind Van Vleuten.

“It was my goal to win a stage, and I’m happy that I did. The pressure is off now. There are still some stages to come, who knows what happens, maybe I can win more stages, and if I do, the GC comes with that,” said Wiebes after the finish. “It was a very hectic race today, unfortunately there were several crashes, but it was a good race. Femke Markus brought me to the front on the final lap, then I found my own way, got a good wheel and launched the sprint myself.”

How it unfolded

The parcours, 123km from Stramproy to Weert without any hills, was almost an exact copy of last year's stage 4. The finish line was passed for the first time after 98 km, followed by three laps of an 8.4-kilometre circuit. The race awarded mountain points on the first passage, time bonifications with two laps to go, and sprint points with one lap to go.

The stage was dominated by several crashes that forced a number of riders, among others Sarah Roy (Mitchelton-Scott), Aude Biannic (Movistar Team), Roos Hoogeboom (Biehler Pro Cycling), Mikayla Harvey (Bigla), and Claudia Koster (WNT-Rotor) to abandon the race.

A big crash with 46km to go saw almost twenty riders hit the ground, including Van Vleuten and Wild. Both the overall leader and the pre-stage favourite were quickly back up and eventually returned to the peloton at the 40-kilometre mark.

Moolman-Pasio attacked with 29km to go as the peloton closed in on Weert. She won the mountain sprint with three laps of the finishing circuit to go, passing the finish 15 seconds ahead of the peloton. This advantage grew to more than 40 seconds halfway through the lap when Deignan jumped from the peloton to chase Moolman-Pasio on her own.

The 33-year-old South African won the bonus sprint, 18 seconds of Deignan and 30 seconds ahead of the peloton where Paternoster took the last remaining bonus second. On the penultimate lap, the sprinters' teams began to chase in earnest, reeling in Deignan with 10km to go and reducing the gap to Moolman-Pasio to only seven seconds with one lap to go.

Moolman-Pasio was finally caught one kilometre into the final lap. Ellen van Dijk (Trek-Segafredo) took the lead with five kilometres to go, pulling the peloton all the way until the two-kilometre mark. When the former world time trial champion had just finished her turn, Tenniglo attacked.

Though she never had a big advantage, Tenniglo persisted and reached the finishing straight, only being passed by the sprinters 300 metres from the line. Not long after, Wiebes launched her sprint from third wheel, quickly passing Paternoster and Wild and winning the stage with a bike length.

Van Vleuten finished with the peloton and defended the orange leader's jersey. She is now three seconds ahead of Wiebes and four seconds ahead of Paternoster in the general classification. Paternoster took the lead in the points classification, Wiebes will start stage 2 in the white U23 jersey. Moolman-Pasio will wear the polka-dot mountain jersey.