Lorena Wiebes sprinted to victory on the opening road stage of the Lotto Belgium Tour, finishing off a superb display of teamwork at the end of the stage with the win.
A fairly stressful start to the race saw no breakaway emerge as the peloton kept a high speed amongst various attacks, and at times split into several groups. Heading into the second half of the race a few individual attacks came and went, gaining less than a minute each time, before the front of the race came back together inside the final 10 kilometres to set up a fast bunch sprint.
Team DSM took control of the race on the approach to the line, keeping the speed high with a great lead out to set Wiebes up perfectly into the final few hundred metres. She unleashed a fast turn of speed to continue in the team’s winning streak, powering to the line to take the stage win. The result sees her move up in the overall standings to 2nd place at two seconds, ahead of tomorrow’s third stage.
Lorena Wiebes said after the stage: “We tried to make the race hard and to push for echelons and the peloton did split at times but it didn’t stick. Overall though we did a good job to stay in the front all day and Wilma [Olausson] did a really good job to position us. For the final we made a plan and again it was a super strong lead-out, so I’m happy to take this one for the team. We’re now looking forward to the other hard stages still to come here.”
RESULTS
Stage General classification Points classification Youth classification Teams classification
| Pos. | Rider | Team | Time | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WIEBES Lorena | Team DSM | 2:28:57 | 16 |
| 2 | D’HOORE Jolien | Belgium | ,, | 12 |
| 3 | GUARISCHI Barbara | Movistar Team | ,, | 8 |