SD Worx continue winning streak with opening TTT win at the Thüringen Ladies Tour

Mathew Mitchell

Published on May 23, 2023
in Women's Cycling

SD Worx secured victory in the opening team time trial of the 2023 Thüringen Ladies Tour. The team only brought 5 of the 6 allowed riders but with two of those being Lorena Wiebes and Lotte Kopecky, there was still plenty of quality on show. They beat Jayco-AlUla by 7 seconds, with Canyon SRAM in 3rd on 18 seconds.

The town of Schleiz and its 100-year-old street circuit the Schelizer Dreieck formed the course for the 9.1 kilometres of circuit today. The first team to set off were One World, the German club team setting a benchmark time of 14:58. Another club team, Team Stuttgart, quickly beat that with a time of 14:35. The Germany national team of Mieke Kröger, Hannah Ludwig, Linda Riedmann, Marla Sigmund, Judith Krahl and Hanna Dopjans were the next to take the hotseat by setting a big improvement of 13:48. Surprisingly though, it didn’t last that long as Arkea went 5 seconds quicker with their time.

It was the Jayco-AlUla team who, as predicted, set a very fast time and the closest one to the 13 minutes mark so far with 13:15. Despite having 6 riders, they lost the pair of Alyssa Polites and Georgie Howe relatively quickly. It remained to be seen how it would fare against the other WWT big hitters here. It was enough to stay well ahead of Fenix-Deceuninck and Ceratizit-WNT. The latter had a particularly messy team time trial, losing riders too quickly and having to do the longest chunk of any team with the necessary 3 riders to cross the line. That slowed them up and saw precious seconds slip away.

AG Insurance-Soudal Quick-step were solid, taking a provisional 3rd that became 4th. A crash after the finish by Romy Kasper on the now slick town centre brick cobbles an unfortunate ending. After a short time, she was able to stand up, smiling, hopefully not injured going into the rest of the Thüringen Ladies Tour. SD Worx set off and as they approached the final kilometre, it was clear it was going to be tight with the Australian team in the hotseat. They crossed the line with only 3 riders left, just 7 seconds ahead of their rivals. Tour of Flanders winner Lotte Kopecky was the first to cross the line and will wear the leader’s jersey tomorrow.