Scheldeprijs Women: Lorena Wiebes continues unbeaten record with sprint win

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Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) beat Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) for the second year in a row at Scheldeprijs in a battle of the peloton’s top sprinters capturing her fourth title in a row at the race.

Wiebes jumped from Kool’s wheel inside the final 200 metres of the 130.5km race to come around the outside, blasting past in time for the line and putting on a flamboyant, bird-like victory celebration.

Behind the lead duo, who were the class of the sprint field at the pan-flat Classic, Martina Fidanza (Ceratizit-WNT) rounded out the podium in third place, just about beating Sofie van Rooijen (VolkerWessels) in the sprint.

“The team did a really good job to chase back the breakaway,” Wiebes said after the finish. “We said that I would choose a wheel of Balsamo or Kool and they both had less lead out. In the end I ended up in Kool’s wheel. Balsamo went on the left and I went on the right, so I think it was an honest sprint today.

“In such a sprint everything has to be in place, especially if you don’t have the last lead-out. The chance of being trapped is very high so there was a little more pushing and pulling but it turned out fine.

“The sprint felt good and I’m already looking forward to Paris-Roubaix Femmes.”

Wiebes’ sixth win of 2024 came after both SD Worx and DSM worked hard in the final kilometres to drag back the two-woman move of Anneke Dijkstra (VolkerWessels) and 19-year-old Wilma Aintila (Lotto-Dstny).

Dijkstra had been out front since making an attack from the peloton 77km from the finish and she’d be joined some 52km later by Aintila, who ventured out with a move 35km out.

Dijkstra had never enjoyed a gap of more than two minutes over the chasing peloton during her lonely ride, while her and Aintila raced into the final 20km with an advantage of a minute – likely not enough to upset the sprinters and keep the move going all the way to the finish in Schoten.

They battled on, however, hitting the final 10km with a 50-second gap to the teams pulling back – including SD Worx, DSM, Visma-Lease A Bike, and UAE Team ADQ.

The gap to the peloton held at around 30-40 seconds for several kilometres before the pace set behind finally told and the gap crumbled away, with the final catch made very close to the finish. Dijkstra and Aintila never stopped battling but were forced to concede the inevitable at just 1.5km to go.

As is often the case in Scheldeprijs, several crashes hit the peloton inside the final 40km, though all the big-name sprinters got through unscathed to contest the finish. DSM and SD Worx set up the sprint, with the former taking over inside the final kilometre to try and deliver Kool to the win she missed out on last year.

However, Wiebes had manoeuvred into prime position just behind her former teammate and closed out the day using her ferocious finishing speed to nudge past and take yet another victory.

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