Amy Pieters wins Nokere Koerse voor Dames

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Amy Pieters (Team SD Worx) beat Grace Brown (Team BikeExchange) and Lisa Klein (Canyon-SRAM) to the line to win Danilith Nokere Koerse on Wednesday. 

The trio broke away to build up a healthy lead over the peloton and, despite a frantic chase in the closing 20km, managed to maintain a slim advantage before the sprint.

Pieters, who hasn’t finished lower than sixth in any of the races she has started this year, had too much for Brown and Klein on the line, with Lotte Kopecky (Liv Racing) leading home the bunch with fourth place.

The leading trio broke away with around 50km to go and their lead never peaked above a minute. It was Brown who initially forced the move to go clear, with Pieters and Klein able to latch on. Trek-Segafredo and several other teams with sprint interests controlled what was left of the peloton and began to chip away at the trios lead over the closing laps, and held the leaders at 30 seconds for most of the chase.

With 12km to go, as they started the final lap, it looked as though the peloton would make the juncture with the gap down to just 18 seconds, but the break found another gear and with 3km to go their advantage had moved out to 26 seconds again.

On the cobbled sprint to the line, Pieters simply had too much for the two riders in the break, with Team SD Worx continuing their incredible start to the season.

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