Stage 2 of the 2026 UAE Tour Women was the kind of day that looks calm on the profile and still ends up feeling like a cage fight. The route around Dubai, 145km from the Dubai Police Academy to the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University, was flat and fast, built for sprinters and their lead-out trains. It delivered exactly that, but only after a long chase, a late surge of nerves, and a finale shaped by narrowing roads and crashes.
Lorena Wiebes won again, extending her early-season stranglehold on this race and keeping hold of the red leader’s jersey. Chiara Consonni took second after being delivered into the sprint as expected, while Nienke Veenhoven snatched third for Visma – Lease a Bike with a late, fast run from behind.
A four-rider break turns the first half into a long, controlled chase
The day settled quickly into a familiar pattern, with a breakaway forming early and the peloton allowing it enough rope to make the stage feel like a race rather than a procession. Lind Magdalene (Hitec Products-Fluid Control), Petra Stiasny (Human Powered Health), Sara Luccon (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo) and Sonia Rossetti (Vini Fantini-BePink) established the move, and the advantage swelled to as much as seven minutes at its peak.
Behind them, SD Worx-Protime were never panicked, but they were never relaxed either. This was a stage Wiebes simply could not afford to throw away in the red jersey, and the pace in the bunch reflected that. UAE Team ADQ and Visma – Lease a Bike also contributed to the control, each with their own sprint ambitions and their own interest in keeping the day on schedule.
The effect was a steady, attritional chase rather than a sharp, dramatic one. The gap bled away in predictable increments, and even when the break still had minutes in hand, the sense was that the peloton was measuring effort for the final 10km rather than treating the catch as a crisis point.
Late probing attacks fail, and the bunch commits to the sprint
Once the advantage began to collapse, the second phase arrived: the restless period where riders try to disrupt the inevitability of the sprint without truly believing the race will get away. With around 30km to go, Marlen Reusser went on the offensive and briefly lifted the tension, and Vittoria Guazzini followed with a move of her own. Neither attempt stuck, but both served as a warning shot that the final kilometres would be fought over, not handed over.
Not long after, the break was reeled in, and the stage entered its most predictable and most stressful stretch. The pace rose, the sprint trains began assembling, and the fight for the front became more intense with every kilometre.
The road narrows, the peloton snaps, and the finale becomes survival first, sprint second
The defining feature of this finish was not a clean lead-out lane, but the way the bunch repeatedly surged and compressed as the road narrowed. Riders were forced backwards, then scrambled forward again, and the costs of a small mistake multiplied rapidly.
A crash close to the final kilometre threw another layer of danger into the mix, splitting the flow of riders and removing any illusion that this would be a textbook run-in. Crucially, the main contenders for the win stayed upright, but the damage was done: the sprint was now a reduced, jagged contest where organisation mattered less than composure and timing.
Guarischi’s rescue mission delivers Wiebes to the front at the right moment
SD Worx-Protime’s winning moment came from the sheer refusal to accept being shuffled back. Barbara Guarischi and Wiebes were forced deep in the bunch as the road tightened, and for a moment it looked as if the win might disappear simply because they were too far away to access the front.
Guarischi described it exactly as it felt: “It was really a big mess in the final.”
She also pinpointed the key sequence – exiting a corner with around 600 metres to go and finding themselves around 30th position, suddenly staring at riders already launching efforts at the front. Her reaction was blunt and immediate, and the story of the stage condensed into one effort: a long, all-out drag to reverse what the road and the chaos had just done to them.
She drove Wiebes back through the traffic, found the gaps, and then delivered her sprinter with roughly 200 to 230 metres left, close enough and fast enough that Wiebes could do what she does best. Wiebes launched early, held her line, and won with daylight to spare.
Consonni second, Veenhoven third after a late surge through the chaos
Behind Wiebes, the sprint for the minor placings reflected the same disorder. Consonni had the positioning to take second once Wiebes hit clear air, while Veenhoven’s ride was built on patience and a late, rapid finish, coming from further back and carrying more speed than those in front in the final metres.
It was a sprint finish, but not a polished one. The defining skills were calm decision-making and the willingness to fight for position after everything had tried to push the favourites out of contention.
UAE Tour Women 2026 stage 2 result
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