Chantal van den Broek-Blaak wins Simac Ladies Tour

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Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) took her third victory of the 2021 Simac Ladies Tour from a reduced bunch sprint ahead of Alice Barnes (Canyon//SRAM), and Amy Pieters (SD Worx). 

Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (SD Worx) finished in the bunch to secure the overall victory, seventeen seconds ahead of Marlen Reusser (Ale BTC Ljubljana), with Ellen van Dijk (Trek-Segafredo) third overall at 30 seconds. 

Vos also retained the points jersey while her teammate Anouska Koster took over the QOM lead from Alison Jackson (Liv Racing), after her solo breakaway efforts on the previous stage, and Pffeifer Georgi (Team DSM) secured the white best young rider jersey. Despite being two riders short, SD Worx came away with the team classification. 

How it unfolded

With just 57 riders taking to the startline, the final stage of the race took place in a rainy Arnhem over 19 laps of a 7.8km course.

A short climb that served as a QOM point on five of the laps also proved to be a launchpad for attacks with Parkhotel Valkenburg and Jumbo-Visma active at the front of the peloton.

It was not until 109km to go that an attack managed to stick as Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon//SRAM), second on Saturday, broke free of the bunch over the top of the second QOM point. However just a few kilometers later the Polish rider was reeled back in.

Over the third QOM with just under 90km to go Koster secured her lead in the polka-dot jersey by taking maximum points, with Jackson, who said prior to the day’s racing that her goal was a stage win, nowhere to be seen.

“The main goal is we want to win the stage,” said the Canadian.

With 60km to go, the day’s main breakaway finally formed with Trixi Worrack (Trek-Segafredo), Ella Harris (Canyon//SRAM), Teniel Campbell (Team BikeExchange), Nina Buysman (Parkhotel Valkenburg) and Jeanne Korevaar (Liv Racing) making up the group.

After 10km they had a gap of over two minutes on the peloton which was being lead by SD Worx.

As the group reached the 50km to go mark the gap started to come down thanks to the efforts of SD Worx and with four laps to go the group’s advantage fell to under one minute.

With just under 30km to go it was Team DSM who took up the chase and the gap fell to just 30 seconds. Campbell found herself distanced and dropped back to the peloton as the rain started to come down harder.

With 16km to go and a gap of just under 30 seconds Campbell’s teammate, Janneke Ensing (Team BikeExchange) saw a chance to bridge to the front group and launched an attack. Shortly after Mischa Bredewold (Parkhotel Valkenburg) and Silke Smulders (Lotto Soudal) also bridged, making a seven rider strong group.

On the final lap, Harris and Ensing struggled to stay with the leaders and dropped back to the bunch as the group’s advantage started to come down.

With five kilometres to go Bredewold, Smulders, and Duval broke free of the group but the efforts of Canyon//SRAM behind brought the gap right down to the leaders and the peloton looked on track to catch them before the finish.

Sure enough, the break was caught with three kilometres to go and it was Trek-Segafredo and Canyon//SRAM working on the front to set up their sprinters.

Amalie Dideriksen of Trek-Segafredo lead into the final sweeping corner and launched her sprint, with Alice Barnes and Marianne Vos coming around on the finishing straight.

Vos proved to be the fastest as Dideriksen had to settle for fourth place as Amy Pieters of SD Worx claimed third.