Van der Breggen tops Energiewacht Tour prologue

Anna van der Breggen raced to the win in the prologue of the Energiewacht Tour on Wednesday evening, beating world time trial champion Lisa Brennauer into second place and claiming the first leader’s jersey of the race.

The fifth edition of the Energiewacht Tour opened in Winsum, with a 2.5km prologue. After a gently descending start, the course turned into a technical section with speed bumps, tight corners and narrow roads, all paved with clinkers. Three-quarters of the way through a smooth tarmac surface gave riders a reprieve, before a sharp turn back onto clinkers into the town, up over a canal bridge and through a double corner before the finish line, a course for riders with confidence and bike handling skills, as well as speed.

Rabo-Liv’s Roxane Knetemann rose to the challenge, starting 11th and laying down a time of 3:21.83, which lasted until Trixi Worrack (Velocio-SRAM) took to the road 19 riders later. Worrack is known for her explosive attacks and love of difficult terrain, so the course suited her perfectly, but all expectations were on her teammate, 2014 ITT World Champion, Lisa Brennauer. She didn’t disappoint. Finishing exactly a second faster than Worrack, as she said, her rainbows gave her wings.

“It felt great, it was the first time I could race in my World Champion’s skinsuit, so today couldn’t go wrong,” she told Cyclingnews. “I rode the course a couple of times to make sure I could remember everything, and I don’t know where I could have gone faster”

It seemed like the biggest threat to Velocio-SRAM dominance could come from previous World Champion, Ellen van Dijk, but while her time of 3:25.23 was fast, she only finished ninth, and with the light falling, it seemed like the final 30 riders would battle for the minor placings, until another Rabo-Liv rider stepped up to the gate. Anna van der Breggen had already opened the season by winning the first women’s European race, the Omloop het Nieuwsblad, and after coming third in the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Trofeo Alfredo Binda World Cups, she clearly wanted to break her streak of “so near and year so far”. She blasted through the darkened course, knocking five seconds off Brennauer’s time, to win with 3:15.14.

“Winning is always nice, and to start a stage race this way this way gives us confidence for the race”, she told us. “When I started I couldn’t see very much, but I did a good recon, so I knew where to ride, and you just have to go full speed. The plan for the rest of the race is to make it a good race, we have a strong, motivated team, and it’s live on television, so I think we can do a good promotion of women’s cycling.”

No one else could touch her, and with her teammate Anouska Koster winning the Best Young Rider jersey, it was a good night for Rabo-Liv.

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