Energiewacht Tour: Wild wins stage 3 in Stadskanaal

Kirsten Wild (Hitec Products) took her first win of the Energiewacht Tour during stage 3 on Saturday. She out-sprinted a breakaway group ahead of Lucinda Brand (Rabo-Liv Women Cycling Team) and Lisa Brennauer (Velocio-SRAM).

Brennauer heads into the stage 4 finale as the overall leader ahead of her teammate Trixi Worrack and Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans Cycling Team) in third.

Throughout the 2015 Energiewacht Tour, teams and riders have been predicting that the race would really begin this weekend, with the forecast promising wind and rain. And they weren’t disappointed. With the wind already picking up in Stadkanaal, riders took their places on the start line 40 minutes before the 116.9km stage began, knowing that the stage would be all about echelons, attacks and the need for perfect positioning.

They were proved right – within the first five kilometres the wind had ripped the peloton into four groups, and a breakaway of 15 was formed, with only the top teams represented: race leader Barbara Guarischi, World ITT Champion Lisa Brennauer and Trixi Worrack (Velocio-SRAM); Stage 2B winner Lucinda Brand, Roxane Knetemann and Anna Knauer (Rabo-Liv); Lizzie Armitstead, Ellen van Dijk and Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans); Belgian Champion Jolien D’hoore and Chloe Hosking from Wiggle Honda; Julia Soek and Sara Mustonen (Liv-Pluntur) and two solo riders, Melissa Hoskins (ORICA-AIS) and Kirsten Wild (Hitec Products).

The 15 riders started off working well together, getting up to 1:05 minutes on the chasing group, and after Knauer was dropped, 14 riders crossed the line into the second of two 54km laps, with Christine Majerus picking up the bonification seconds.

During the second lap, as the rain poured down, the relentless attacking and echelon action dropped the yellow jersey of Guarischi and Mustonen, then as they turned north into the crosswinds, Boels-Dolmans pushed up the tempo, and Knetemann, Soek and Hoskins fell back, with Hosking puncturing out, leaving eight riders to finish the second lap together.

With just a final local loop of seven kilometres left, the three Boels-Dolmans riders attacked over and over again, Lisa Brennauer working to close them down every time, with the help of Kirsten Wild. Van Dijk went over and over again for her teammates, attacking until she was dropped – and then the seven riders turned the corner into the final three-kilometre run-in to the finish.

Lizzie Armitstead attacked three times, but she couldn’t shake Brennauer from her wheel, and they came to the finish together, until, just like yesterday, Lucinda Brand started her sprint at 200m to go. But this time Kirsten Wild was ready, and powered past to take her first victory of the race.

Brand finished second, and after all her work, Brennauer was third, but her consolation prize was the yellow jersey, making her the third Velocio-SRAM rider to wear it this race. Tomorrow the team will work to defend it as the race heads to Brennauer’s homeland, and the German island of Borkum. But with more winds predicted, the race promises to be a fight to the finish.