Wiebes completes Tour of Chongming Island hat-trick

Lorena Wiebes (Parkhotel Valkenburg) was unbeatable at the Tour of Chongming Island, finishing her clean sweep of the race with the third stage win in as many days. The final stage saw many attacks as riders fought for bonus seconds at the three intermediate sprints, but in the end it came down to a sprint.

Behind Wiebes, Jutatip Maneephan (Thailand Women's Cycling Team) and Lotte Kopecky (Lotto Soudal Ladies) sprinted to second and third place on the stage. The final overall classification sees these three riders on the podium in the same order.

The last stage started and finished at New City Park on Chongming Island. It consisted of one big loop followed by six laps of a finishing circuit for a total of 118.4 kilometres. The organisers sprung a surprise on the peloton by including a mountain sprint after the second lap. Hanna Tserakh (Minsk Cycling Club) was first over the line, but this did not change the final mountain classification, with Nina Kessler (Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank) taking home the polka-dot jersey.

A break of three was ahead by up to 55 seconds on the big loop, but the advantage of Gulnaz Badykova (Cogeas Mettler Look), Kseniya Dobrynina (Servetto-Piumate-Beltrami TSA), and Li Jiaqi (China Liv Pro Cycling) had been reduced to 13 seconds at the start of the finishing circuit. And when Badykova’s teammate Olga Zabelinskaya bridged to the front trio, the peloton deemed this too dangerous and reeled the group in.

There were intermediate sprints after the first, third, and fifth lap of the finishing circuit, offering bonus seconds that would become crucial for a good overall result in a race dominated by sprint finishes. Julia Biryukova attacked after the early break had been caught and held her own for about a lap, winning the first intermediate sprint ahead of Wiebes and Maneephan.

Near the end of lap three, Maaike Boogaard (BTC City Ljubljana) and Valeriya Kononenko (Lviv Cycling Team) were the next to get away. Boogaard won the sprint and dropped back afterwards, surprising Kononenko who wanted to keep the breakaway going.

The attacks kept coming, keeping the speed high and the peloton strung out in single file. A dangerous group of eight including Kopecky and riders from Mitchelton-Scott, WNT-Rotor, and Parkhotel Valkenburg got a small advantage with 30 km to go. But the group could not agree to work together, and yellow jersey Wiebes closed the last gap herself.

Liu Zixin (Chinese National Team) launched a solo at the start of the penultimate lap. The peloton never lost her out of sight and reeled her in with 14 km to go, setting the sprinters up for the final intermediate sprint. Sarah Roy (Mitchelton-Scott) was first, beating Marta Tagliaferro (Hitec Products-Birk Sport), Kessler, and Kopecky – but after the race, Roy was relegated for irregular sprinting, losing the bonus seconds and incurring a 30-second time penalty that sent her tumbling from fifth to 72nd overall.

Parkhotel Valkenburg and Hitec Products-Birk Sport led the peloton on the final lap to discourage attacks. Mitchelton-Scott formed a sprint train and came to the front in force on the final kilometre. But Roy waited too long to start her sprint and had no chance against Wiebes, Maneephan, and Kopecky.

Maneephan wins the blue jersey for the best Asian rider while Wiebes takes home the yellow jersey, the green points jersey, and the white jersey for the best U23 rider. On top of that, the young Dutch sprinter moves up to fourth place in the UCI Women’s WorldTour ranking and takes the lead in the youth ranking.

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