SD Worx-Protime aim for multiple victories at Women’s Tour of Britain

Team SD Worx - Protime shirt van de achterzijde. Foto: Raymond Kerckhoffs

SD Worx-Protime are set on extending their domination of the Womenโ€™s WorldTour, aiming for “as many wins as possible” at the upcoming Women’s Tour of Britain. The Dutch team, led by World Champion Lotte Kopecky and top sprinter Lorena Wiebes, will tackle the four stages starting on Thursday in Welshpool and concluding on Sunday in Greater Manchester.

With 31 wins already in 2024, the team has secured victories in half of the 18 WWT events so far this season. Their latest wins were in the UK at the RideLondon Classique, where Wiebes triumphed in all three stages and took the overall, with Kopecky supporting her.

โ€œWe are going there with a strong team. Our aim is to get as many wins as possible,โ€ said Sports Manager Danny Stam when SD Worx confirmed their line-up. โ€œIt is a challenging course that should suit us. However, we have to see how well Lotte Kopecky has recovered from RideLondon. She rode an impressive race there but also crashed hard and had a bit of a cold.โ€

โ€œFor stage wins, we will certainly also be looking at Lorena Wiebes. She has gone the extra mile again this season. She is simply unbeatable in the sprint.โ€

SD Worx-Protime has been the leading womenโ€™s team for the past few seasons, with Kopecky, Wiebes, and GC star Demi Vollering playing crucial roles in their near-total domination in 2023.

The 2024 season saw them miss out on big goals at the Ardennes Classics and Tour of Flanders, with Lidl-Trek, Canyon SRAM, and FDJ-SUEZ spoiling the party. However, Stam was still pleased with their current win tally, especially after Volleringโ€™s clean sweep of the Spanish stage races in May.

โ€œFor now, thereโ€™s almost nothing to write off. Weโ€™ve had a strong spring. In the Ardennes classics, we performed less than the year before, but overall I am satisfied with the spring,โ€ said Stam. โ€œThen, as a team, we rode very impressively in the Spanish block. After the 2023 success year, we did not expect at the beginning of this season to have such a high win total again now.โ€

Kopecky and Wiebes will likely share leadership across the varied parcours at the Tour of Britain Women, which returns to the calendar now under the organisation of British Cycling. SD Worx-Protime will also have Elena Cecchini, Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, Barbara Guarischi, and Christine Majerus to support their sprinter and the World Champion.