Jolien D'hoore wins Healthy Ageing Tour opener

Jolien D’hoore continued team SD Worx’s winning streak, claiming the stage 1 victory at the Healthy Ageing Tour on Wednesday. The Belgian sprinter crossed the line ahead of Alice Barnes (Canyon-SRAM) and Karlijn Swinkels (Jumbo-Visma), as pre-race favourite Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) crashed in the final sprint.

"It was pretty hectic and the speed was very high. I'am pretty happy to take the win for the team today. I want to go for the chance and I had a great team to help me," D’hoore said.

D’hoore takes the first leader’s jersey of the three-day Healthy Ageing Tour, with a four-second lead over Barnes, and five seconds ahead of Lisa Brennauer (Ceratizit-WNT).  The racing resumes with the stage 2 time trial on Thursday.

How it unfolded

The UCI 2.1-classed Healthy Ageing Tour offers the women’s peloton three days of racing in between the Women’s WorldTour one-day events in March. Organisers confirmed that the race would go ahead just two weeks ago, with no spectators and on closed courses, but they launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund a live stream and offset restrictions on spectators, and the event is broadcast on Eurosport and GCN.

The opening stage was a 126km race held on 28 laps of the TT Circuit Assen, a motorsport race track, with 94 riders across 16 teams. Bonuses of five, three and one seconds were offered to the first three across the line at intermediate sprints on the circuit. There was also a GPM sprint and six intermediate sprints for points.

Amy Pieters (SD Worx) picked up the first bonus sprint after 27km of racing, and Lisa Brennauer (Ceratizit-WNT) picked up the second bonus after 45km of racing. Chloe Hosking (Trek-Segafredo) picked up full points at the intermediate GPM sprint.

In the intermediate sprint for the points classification, Gudrun Stock (German National Team) secured five of the six sprints and now leads the sprint classification.

After 81km of racing, Lena Mettraux (Switzerland) took the next bonus sprint and the final intermediate sprint for points while in an attempt at a solo breakaway, but the peloton was all together with two laps and 9km to go.

Daniek Hangeveld (GT Krush Tunap) took a last-lap flyer which almost made it to the finish line, but the main field was intent on a bunch sprint and she was caught within metres of the finish line.

Lorena Wiebes (Team DMS) crashed in the final sprint, but was able to get back on her bike and finish the stage, as D’hoore went on to secure the stage 1 victory ahead of Barnes and Swinkels.