Lorena Wiebes claims second consecutive victory on stage 2 at Simac Ladies Tour

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Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) has doubled up with a second consecutive stage win in the Simac Ladies Tour, winning stage 2 in a mass sprint in Ede, after taking stage 1 in the sprint of a reduced group the previous day.

The last escapee from an early break of three was caught 15km from the finish, and as there were no further attacks, the stage came down to a sprint.

Trek-Segafredo took the front on the last three kilometres and pushed the pace to keep the DSM train behind them, but DSM came back on the final kilometre and led out Wiebes to win the sprint ahead of Laura Tomasi (UAE Team ADQ) and Lonneke Uneken (Team SD Worx).

With her stage win, Wiebes also defends the yellow leader's jersey.

“I lost my last lead-out [Charlotte Kool] in the final, and then I had to go early from the wheel of Pfeiffer [Georgi]. I tried to keep something back and stay out of the wind a bit in that last part, that didn’t quite work out, but I was able to catch the riders from behind and then start my sprint again. It was a very short sprint, but enough to win,” Wiebes described the chaotic final.

Before that, DSM had been in the driver’s seat all day.

“It was a really good situation for us that the three were up front, and we controlled it from behind, first with Elise [Uijen] and then Leah [Kirchmann] and Franzi [Koch] plus Pfeiffer and Charlotte in the final, so we had everything under control today.

“The general classification isn’t a goal for me, but I’m looking forward to getting as far as possible,” Wiebes finished.

How it unfolded

Stage 2 started and finished in Ede and consisted of a 40-kilometre circuit that was raced three times. Taking into account the neutralisation at the start, the total race distance was 117.8 km.

Georgia Baker (Team BikeExchange-Jayco), Lieke Nooijen (Parkhotel Valkenburg), and Senne Knaven (AG Insurance-NXTG) went on the attack in the first 10km and built an advantage of up to 1:50 minutes.

Clara Lundmark (GT Krush Tunap Pro Cycling) went on a solo chase but never made it to the front and eventually gave up. On the second lap, Team DSM and Team Jumbo-Visma stepped up the chase and brought the gap down to only 29 seconds as the race crossed the finish line with 40km to go.

Knaven dropped back to the peloton, leaving only Baker and Nooijen up front, and when Knaven had been reeled in, Anneke Dijkstra (GT Krush Tunap Pro Cycling) attacked from the bunch. 

A crash brought down Emilia Fahlin (FDJ SUEZ Futuroscope) and Susanne Andersen (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team); while Fahlin could finish the race, Andersen had to abandon.

With 25km to go, Baker dropped Nooijen to continue on her own, briefly increasing her advantage to 55 seconds at the 20-kilometre mark but losing ground after that. She was caught with 15km to go, and the sprinters’ teams kept the pace high on the run-in to Ede to thwart any late attacks.

In a chaotic sprint, Wiebes launched a first time to get onto the wheel of Amalie Dideriksen (Trek-Segafredo), then waited there for a few seconds before jumping again. In her slipstream, Tomasi and Uneken sprinted to second and third place. Wiebes now leads the GC by 15 seconds to Karlijn Swinkels (Team Jumbo-Visma) and Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Trek-Segafredo).

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