Lotte Kopecky (Team SD Worx) won stage 2 of the Simac Ladies Tour, a 7.2-kilometre individual time trial in the Belgian city of Leuven and took the GC lead.
Fifth-last off the start ramp, the Belgian ITT champion was the only rider to cover the course in less than nine minutes, stopping the clock at 8:59.35 minutes. Riejanne Markus (Team Jumbo-Visma) started right after Kopecky and came closest to her time, finishing in 9:01.18 minutes.
In the general classification, Markus is now two seconds behind Kopecky, with Wiebes in third place at 13 seconds.
"I am happy to win today, but I would have preferred to start in the rainbow jersey tomorrow," Kopecky joked after receiving the yellow leader's jersey on the podium.
"It wasn't an easy course, because you can't calculate your effort, it's just seven kilometres all-in to the limit, and that really hurts. But it is something that suits me," she described her winning effort.
Kopecky is having a spectacular 2023 season with lots of victories, now also including her first Women's WorldTour ITT win, and on home soil.
"It was great to see all the roadside support today, thank you for that. This year is very good, and I know that it can quickly go the other way, so I really want to take everything from this season and enjoy it to the fullest," she said.
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"Tomorrow will be a sprint stage, and this weekend, we'll have two very tough days with a finish on the Cauberg and then the Arnhem stage with the Posbank on Sunday. I think it will be an interesting weekend," Kopecky looked ahead to the remaining three stages.
How it unfolded
No doubt because of the ever-increasing stardom of Kopecky, the Simac Ladies Tour held a stage in Belgium for the first time in its history. Starting and finishing in the centre of Leuven, the ITT route started and finished on narrow streets with some technical corners while the middle part was more straightforward in the city's industrial northern outskirts.
Daniek Hengeveld (Team DSM-Firmenich) was the fifth rider to start and set the first benchmark of 9:40.33 minutes, keeping the lead until Georgie Howe (Team Jayco AlUla) bested her time with 9:18.50 minutes.
Howe stayed in the hot seat for most of the ITT as rider after rider fell short of her time. Marthe Goossens (AG Insurance-Soudal Quick Step) came closest with 9:20.08 minutes, but then Howe's teammate Georgia Baker cut almost three seconds off the best time with 9:15.96 minutes.
The lead changed quickly from then on as Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Deceuninck) bested Baker's time with 9:12.57 minutes before herself being beaten by Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM) with 9:10.59 minutes.
Only a few minutes later, Kopecky cut 11 seconds off that and set the winning time of under nine minutes that Markus just missed, having to settle for second place. Overnight leader Charlotte Kool (Team DSM-Firmenich) finished in 9:32.67 minutes, dropping to tenth place overall.
Lukas Knöfler started working in cycling communications in 2013 and has seen the inside of the scene from many angles. Having worked as press officer for teams and races and written for several online and print publications, he has been Cyclingnews’ Women’s WorldTour correspondent since 2018.
