La Choralis Fourmies Féminine 2026: Lorena Wiebes beats Nienke Veenhoven to defend title

Lorena Wiebes successfully defended her La Choralis Fourmies Féminine title, beating Nienke Veenhoven and Linda Zanetti in a bunch sprint after the attacking riders were unable to prevent the race coming back together in Fourmies.

The Team SD Worx-Protime rider had appeared boxed in when the sprint opened but found the space she needed before accelerating clear in the closing metres. Veenhoven finished second for Team Visma | Lease a Bike, a day after winning A Travers les Hauts de France, while Zanetti completed the podium for Uno-X Mobility.

Shari Bossuyt took fourth for AG Insurance-Soudal and Charlotte Kool was fifth for Fenix-Premier Tech. It was Wiebes’s 20th victory of the 2026 season and made her the first rider to win La Choralis Fourmies Féminine twice.

How it unfolded

The revised La Choralis Fourmies Féminine 2026 route gave the teams trying to avoid a sprint more opportunities than in previous editions, with 126.4km of rolling roads around Fourmies and an extended middle section through the Avesnois.

Wet roads added another complication early in the race. Amalie Dideriksen was among the riders caught by a crash after around 10km and was forced to abandon, while the peloton remained together through the opening phase.

Zoé Bihan and Laura Poncet then established the day’s main breakaway. Their advantage reached around three minutes and 40 seconds, but the sprint teams never allowed the pair enough freedom to turn the move into a genuine threat to the finish.

Team Visma | Lease a Bike were among those contributing to the chase and the break was brought back with a little over 40km remaining. That opened the race again as teams without one of the leading sprinters began looking for another route to victory.

Christie tries to turn the race against the sprinters

Henrietta Christie made the most substantial move after the original break was caught. The EF Education-Oatly rider attacked alone with around 36km remaining and briefly established herself at the front while the peloton hesitated behind.

Christie stayed clear for around 11km before the chase brought her back. Imogen Wolff and Katharina Sadnik were also among the riders trying to make the rolling roads count, with Team Visma | Lease a Bike balancing those attacks against their chances of setting up Veenhoven for the sprint.

That was the central tactical problem identified in the pre-race contenders preview. Beating Wiebes once she reached a clean sprint was always likely to be difficult, so the alternative was to make the race hard enough that either she or the riders required to control the finale were removed from contention.

The attacks made SD Worx-Protime work, but they never developed into the decisive split Wiebes’s rivals needed.

Berteau makes another late attempt

The 2026 start list contained enough sprint depth to ensure several teams remained committed to bringing the race back together. Wiebes was joined by Kool, Veenhoven, Lara Gillespie and a number of other fast finishers, giving the peloton plenty of incentive to keep chasing.

Victoire Berteau was among those who tried to disrupt that plan in the closing kilometres. The Cofidis rider attacked again with less than 10km remaining, continuing an aggressive race for the French team after Bihan’s earlier spell in the breakaway.

Berteau could not make enough of a gap stick. Uno-X Mobility, Team Picnic PostNL, Team Visma | Lease a Bike and Fenix-Premier Tech all became increasingly visible towards the front as the remaining kilometres disappeared and the race finally settled into the expected battle for position.

No single team managed to impose a complete lead-out. The approach into Fourmies remained crowded, with riders repeatedly changing wheels and several of the main sprinters beginning the final acceleration from less than ideal positions.

Wiebes comes through the traffic to win

Wiebes initially appeared to be one of the riders who had lost out. She was surrounded as the sprint developed and did not have the clear launch that often makes her victories look straightforward.

Once the opening appeared, however, the result changed quickly. Wiebes moved into clear road and accelerated past the riders ahead, opening enough of a margin before the line to leave little doubt about the winner.

Veenhoven was the closest challenger and completed an excellent weekend in northern France. The 22-year-old had won A Travers les Hauts de France in a bunch sprint the previous afternoon before immediately backing that result up against a considerably stronger sprint field in Fourmies.

“Second place behind Lorena was the best we could achieve today,” Veenhoven said afterwards, having been guided into the finale by her Team Visma | Lease a Bike teammates.

Zanetti took third for Uno-X Mobility, with Bossuyt fourth and Kool fifth. Lonneke Uneken finished sixth ahead of Kaja Rysz, Mia Griffin, Arianna Fidanza and Katrijn De Clercq.

Wiebes becomes the first two-time winner in Fourmies

The victory added a new distinction to the history of La Choralis Fourmies Féminine. Every completed edition before 2026 had produced a different winner.

Thi That Nguyen won the inaugural edition in 2019, followed by Pfeiffer Georgi in 2021, Clara Copponi in 2022, Marta Lach in 2023, Silvia Zanardi in 2024 and Wiebes in 2025. Her successful title defence therefore made the Dutch rider the first repeat winner of the race.

The way she won also underlined the challenge Fourmies continues to present to teams trying to stop the sprinters. The longer 2026 route created repeated opportunities to attack, and Bihan, Christie and Berteau all used them, but the course still left enough road for teams with fast finishers to repair the damage.

Marta Lach showed in 2023 that a late attack can survive here. The three editions since have instead been decided by riders carrying enough speed into Fourmies to finish from the group, and Wiebes has now converted that type of race into consecutive victories.

La Choralis Fourmies Féminine 2026 result

Full results: FirstCycling.com

Main photo credit: Getty