Energiewacht Tour: Brennauer wins overall title

Lisa Brennauer (Velocio-SRAM) won the overall title at the Energiewacht Tour following the stage 4 finale on Sunday. She ended up taking the overall win by nine seconds ahead of her teammate Trixi Worrack and Christine Majerus (Boels Dolmans Cycling Team) in third.

Anna van der Breggen (Rabo Liv Women Cycling Team) won the finale after a solo move in Borkum. She crossed the finish line with over a minute ahead of runner-up Jolien D'hoore (Wiggle Honda) and Kirsten Wild (Hitec Products).

The final stage of the 2015 Energiewacht Tour, the first-ever women’s stage race to be broadcast live, broke new ground again by taking the peloton out of the Netherlands and across the water to the German island of Borkum.

The island may only be 33 square kilometres, and flat, but with the wind howling off the North Sea, the course was incredibly tough. The 13.5km circuit not only took in-sea-front roads, but also travelled through a nature reserve with no shelter at all for the peloton during the seven laps.

While the race had left the Netherlands behind, the Dutch-style tactics were in full force, with Rabo-Liv making the first move in the first five kilometre and splitting the peloton to pieces. Twenty riders made it to the front, but the number soon settled to ten, with Rabo represented by Roxanne Knetemann and two stage winners – Anna van der Breggen, who won the Prologue, and Stage 2B victor Lucinda Brand; for Velocio-SRAM, the Race leader Lisa Brennauer, Trixi Worrack, second in GC at one second behind her and Barbara Guarischi; Third placed GC rider Christine Majerus and Romy Kasper for Boels-Dolmans; and two of the top sprinters, Belgian Champion Jolien D’hoore (Wiggle Honda) and Stage 3 winner Kirsten Wild (Hitec Products).

By the time they entered lap 2, Guarischi had been dropped, while Majerus, only 10 seconds behind Brennauer on GC fought for the sprint bonifications but lost out to Brand. Starting lap 5 a minute ahead of the next chasing group of eight riders, the pace picked up, and Majerus was dropped, and then, after a number of attacks on the open field section, Van der Breggen attacked and got a gap.

With Van der Breggen sitting 2:46 behind Brennauer on GC, the two Velocio-SRAM riders didn’t need to chase, and while D’hoore pushed to try to catch her, the Rabo-Liv rider was away, riding the last 30km solo, winning by 1’07”. Attacks behind her, the remaining six riders came to the finish together, D’hoore winning the sprint for second ahead of Wild.

Lisa Brennauer’s fourth place meant the jersey was hers to keep, and with her team-mate Trixi Worrack’s second place on General Classification and the Team Time Trial win, it was a successful week for Velocio-SRAM, taking their first UCI-level win of 2015.