Women’s Tour cycling: Lorena Wiebes sustains remarkable run of wins

Lorena Wiebes claimed the leader’s yellow jersey by sprinting to a second successive victory on stage three of the Women’s Tour.

The Dutch rider and pre-race favourite, who has bounced back from her opening-day crash in impressive fashion, took advantage of English Team DSM teammate Pfeiffer Georgi’s lead-out to cross the line first in Gloucester. But the 23-year-old had to do things the hard way, battling back from being dropped by the peloton on an uncategorised climb with 20km of the 107.9km stage from Tewkesbury remaining, to rejoin the front group with 9km to go.

“Today was a hard stage, with attacks from the beginning of the race,” Wiebes said afterwards. “The girls did a great job reacting to them all. On the first climbs we were in a good position and Leah [Kirchmann] and Franzi [Koch] kept the pace up because of the breakaway.

“On the second last climb I was with Charlotte [Kool] and Pfeiffer in the second group but when we started the last climb, they brought it back to the first group. We will go all-in tomorrow to try and make it three.”

Wiebes has already won four of the last six Women’s Tour stages – dating back to the race last year – and was again successful in the first Women’s Tour leg to take place in Gloucestershire. “I think we can be more than happy about today. It was a hard stage today and was not easy,” Wiebes’s Team DSM coach Albert Timmer said.

Lizzie Holden, riding for for Le Col – Wahoo, was the top British rider on stage three, finishing 16th, and is currently 22nd overall, 20 seconds behind the leader.