Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) went three from three in sprints at the UAE Tour Women as she won the final stage of the 2025 race.
The Dutchwoman, who won stages 1 and 2, lost her lead-out in the closing kilometre but surfed the wheels to soar clear of Sara Fiorin (Ceratizit) and Amalie Dideriksen (Cofidis) on the line at Abu Dhabi Breakwater.
A pile-up in the peloton marred the finish to the pan-flat 128km route, which began at Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Academy on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi and travelled through the city to finish on the waterfront.
“It’s nice to win it and also the team worked really hard for it today, so I had to finish it off,” Wiebes said afterwards. “It was really chaotic in the last kilometres, I lost my train but I found my way out and I was able to sprint. I knew before it was mostly headwind towards the finish so I didn't want to come too early to the front, but I felt somebody on the right side coming up. I reacted and it was enough to hold it to the finish line.”
The Dutchwoman has now won half of all the stages at the UAE Tour Women and this week’s heroics took her career tally up to 96 wins. “It’s really nice to start the season like this, and for the team it’s also great and it’s something we can build on,” she added.
It was a less eventful day for red jersey Elisa Longo Borghini, who finished safely in the bunch to secure her second overall title at the race, after victory in the inaugural edition in 2023. The Italian finished 2:06 ahead of domestique Silvia Persico – who was third overall in 2023 – and 2:08 in front of Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) on GC.
How it happened
Last year a breakaway denied Wiebes the win on this stage, and it was clear that many teams without a pure sprinter had a similar result in mind this year. FDJ-Suez’s Loes Adegeest was the first to get a real gap, attacking shortly before the 100km to go mark, but she was reeled in shortly before the day’s first intermediate sprint at the Yas Marina Circuit.
Persico and Le Court battled for the bonus seconds, with the Italian leading out the sprint and nicking the maximum three bonus seconds on the line, ahead of Le Court and Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ).
The race ignited after a long, exposed drag on a motorway bridge as Nina Berton (EF Education-Oatly) made a sudden attack with 72km to go, with Yuliia Biriukova (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) and Morgane Coston (Roland) immediately latching onto her wheel. Adegeest and Millie Couzens (Fenix-Deceuninck) jumped across, but the long, exposed, six-lane motorways rang the death knell for the break: they were absorbed with 38km to go, ahead of the return to the city proper.
No sooner had the peloton reached those more sheltered roads than the attacks began again. Elinor Barker (Uno X-Mobility) was the only one to string out a gap, with SD Worx-Protime parked on the front to shut down other attempts. Barker was first to roll over the day’s second intermediate sprint at Qasr al Hosn, with Sofie Van Rooijen taking two bonus seconds in the sprint for second place, protecting Persico’s lead over Le Court, who again took the final bonus second on offer.
Barker was forced to concede defeat in the final 4km as the teams massed for the bunch sprint. A long-range attack by Vittoria Guazzini (FDJ-Suez) was caught under the flamme rouge, but SD Worx-Protime had lost control as Visma-Lease a Bike took to the front.
Amidst the chaos in the peloton, a nasty crash took down a Canyon-SRAM-Zondacrypto rider and a couple of Picnic PostNL riders. But Wiebes was safely out of trouble, tucked in behind the Visma-Lease a Bike train before launching her sprint. She held up peace signs and sported a wide grin as she crossed the line, winning the only stage at the UAE Tour Women which had eluded her until now, and securing the points jersey in the process.
Resuls
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