Charlotte Kool of DSM took victory on the third and final stage of the RideLondon-Classique. It rounded out a race where she took victory on Stage 1 and despite a crash on Stage 2 was able to bring home another stage victory and the GC win. For DSM, it’s the second win in the RideLondon Classique in a row after Lorena Wiebes won all 3 stages and the GC last year.
The race this year was centred on the Mall, its traditional finish after a year out on Embankment in the shadow of Big Ben. The rider went into the race knowing that bonus seconds might shake up the GC and that Kool might not be 100% after the crash that disrupted the end of yesterday’s stage. Early attacks from the AWOL O’Shea team, including breakaway rider on Stage 1 Francesca Morgans-Slader, were brought back as teams were looking to ensure a contest at the end of the 3rd lap for the first intermediate sprint.
There Chloe Dygert took the full 3 bonus seconds from Lizzie Deignan and Pfeiffer Georgi in 3rd, covering on behalf of Charlotte Kool. That meant there were only 5 seconds separating Kool and Deignan with Dygert at 7 seconds back with more opportunities to come. The second intermediate sprint however was wrapped up by a break from Sofie van Rooijen, Victoire Berteau and Grace Lister. The trio had an advantage of over a minute at one point but the bunch worked hard to bring that back in time for the finale.
The sprint trains loaded up and despite not being 100%, Charlotte Kool was still able to take the sprint win by a bike length from Canyon-SRAM’s Chloe Dygert and Maike van Duin. The double-podium helped to cap off a successful race for Canyon SRAM that included their first WWT victory for almost 4 years. Torelli’s Hanna Johansson was able to finish and in doing so took home the QoM jersey for the Continental team. A great result in a Women’s WorldTour race.
‘‘I’m really happy. I think this one is really from the team, how we did it today again, how strong the girls did, it’s really impressive. I think it was a bit in our benefit that there were a lot of GC riders who wanted to keep the GC close. For us, the bonus seconds were not a problem, and neither were the girls in front. So for us, it was a good situation, as they tried to close it. It worked out for us!
It was really tough this morning, I felt really, really bad. So I’m really happy that I could even just stay in this stage still, as well as take the GC home. I think this is really one for the team. They kept me really hyped, and the way they rode today was really impressive. This was the next goal, and we go now to the Tour, which will be my main goal of the summer. I’m really looking forward to it.’
Charlotte Kool
2023 RideLondon Classique Stage 3 result
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
Photo credits: Chloe Knott & Bob Martin for London Marathon Events
