Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) took her second consecutive stage victory in the Simac Ladies Tour, winning stage 3 in the sprint of a reduced group ahead of Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) and Lotte Kopecky who still finished third after leading out Wiebes.
On the completely flat terrain in the polders of Flevoland, the wind blew the peloton apart halfway through the stage, splitting it into four groups. For a long time, the gap between the front group of 22 and a chasing group of 24 riders fluctuated between 30 and 40 seconds, only rising in the last 15km.
First Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) and then Franzi Koch (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) tried to get away in the final 10km but were both reeled in, setting up a sprint finish.
Kopecky led out her teammate on the finishing straight, and Wiebes launched her sprint with about 150 metres to go. Balsamo tried to come past from her rear wheel but could not match Wiebes for speed and had to settle for second place. After her lead-out, Kopecky still held off Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) for third place.
Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM) was part of the first group and defended her yellow jersey. However, she lost four seconds to the first five riders on the stage and is now three seconds ahead of Kopecky and eight seconds ahead of Ellen van Dijk (Lidl-Trek) in the overall classification heading into stage 4 on Friday.
How it unfolded
Starting and finishing in Zeewolde, the 148.4km stage consisted of one big loop around Flevoland followed by a 20km finishing circuit. With strong northwesterly winds and next to no cover on the reclaimed polder land, echelons were likely.
After 73km, a 2.5km stretch with full-on crosswinds finally broke the peloton apart. The first group consisted of 22 riders who quickly increased their advantage on the groups behind. 62km from the finish, the front group was half a minute up on the 24 chasers while the third and fourth groups had effectively given up, being respectively two and four minutes behind.
SD Worx-Protime had all seven of their riders in the front group while Lidl-Trek were represented with Longo Borghini, Balsamo, Van Dijk, and Elynor Bäckstedt. Kool, Koch, Rachele Barbieri, and Megan Jastrab were there for DSM-Firmenich PostNL, Liv-AlUla-Jayco had Ruby Roseman-Gannon and Silke Smulders while GC leader Bäckstedt, Nienke Veenhoven (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ) were without teammates.
With tailwinds on the way back towards the finish, the two groups did a long-range pursuit, with neither side really getting the upper hand as the time gap varied between 25 and 42 seconds. Lieke Nooijen and her Visma-Lease a Bike teammates who had missed the first echelon got help from Fenix-Deceuninck while SD Worx-Protime and Lidl-Trek did most of the work in the front.
Crossing the finish line with 20km to go, there were 37 seconds in between, but the chase group lost time in the end, finishing 1:26 minutes down. This made Nooijen lose her second place in GC.
With the chase group at a safe distance, the fight for the stage victory began when Longo Borghini attacked with 10.2km to go, right after Van Dijk had finished a turn at the front of the group. Wiebes and Kopecky themselves committed to chasing down the Italian champion who was finally caught 8.8km from the line.
Koch then launched her move with seven kilometres to go, quickly getting a gap as Christine Majerus (SD Worx-Protime) jumped after her. Majerus got onto Koch’s wheel and refused to take turns while Van Dijk led the chase behind, and the attack was neutralised with 5.7km to go. Elynor Bäckstedt tried another acceleration at the 5km mark but did not get away, and from there on, the sprint preparations began.
Barbara Guarischi (SD Worx-Protime) led Kopecky and Wiebes onto the finishing straight where Kopecky started a long lead-out. Balsamo was lurking in Wiebes’ wheel while Kool was brought up from behind by Barbieri. Wiebes launched her sprint, and Balsamo came out of her slipstream and tried to pull alongside but had to sit down again as she could not make up ground, resigning herself to second place. Kopecky still had enough speed to beat Kool to the line for third place, picking up four bonus seconds.
Results
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