Tour de Gatineau: Nienke Veenhoven leads Visma-Lease a Bike podium sweep

Nienke Veenhoven powered Visma–Lease a Bike to a sweep at the Tour de Gatineau on Saturday, winning from a breakaway sprint. Teammates Martina Fidanza and Margaux Vigié completed the podium in second and third, with Lieke Nooijen close behind in fourth. Canada’s Laury Millette (Québec) rounded out the top five.

“Really fun, we raced a very nice race with the team and I’m very happy with that,” Veenhoven said of her second professional victory of the season.

“It’s always nice to win a race of course but especially after what the girls did today for me, that they believed in me. It's really, really special.”

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“We tried to race hard from the start, and we did, and we also made a very nice plan [towards the finish. And the girls did a really good job to put me in a winning position, and I'm really proud of them.”

Under sunny skies, the 89-rider peloton faced 11 laps of a punchy 11.1km circuit, the same loop that was done twice for the Chrono de Gatineau won by Nooijen on Friday.

Visma, the only WorldTour at the event, dominated the 122.1km race. They first split the peloton and then put the hammer down with 67km to go, launching a group of 12 riders up the road that included the complete squad.

In addition to the six Visma riders, the break included Millette, Skyler Goudswaard (The Cyclery Racing), Mathilde Huot (Milton Revolution Women's U23 Project), Joséphine Péloquin (LA Sweat Racing), Sofa Arreola Navarro (Virginia's Blue Ridge TWENTY28) and Karlijn Koops (Orion Racing).

Once the break was established, Veenhoven and Fidanza sat on while their teammates set the pace. Meanwhile, the peloton led by Virginia's Blue Ridge TWENTY28 held the gap to around 1:20 for most of the race before the final acceleration.

On the bell lap, Gouthard and Huot moved to the back, trying to position themselves against the Visma juggernaut for the final sprint. The fight to get on Visma’s sixth rider’s wheel animated the final two kilometres, as the Visma squad accelerated at the front.

With 1.1km, the Visma squad was down to four riders, as they continued to push the pace, dropping all but Millette. But soon, neither Nooijen nor Millette were able to stick to the trio that would take 1-2-3.

Crossing the line 2:48 later, Lucie Fityus (Australia) took the field sprint for 13th place.

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