A serial winner on the road, it might be time to get used to seeing Lorena Wiebes winning inside the velodrome, too.
The Dutchwoman competed in, and won, her first international track event at the UCI Track World Championships on Wednesday evening, holding off three-time Olympic champion Jennifer Valente (USA) in the scratch race.
The victory brought a career-first rainbow jersey for Wiebes, across all disciplines, as she plots a path towards the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
Is she thinking about racing track at the next Games? “Yes that’s possible,” she told Cycling Weekly.
Although best known for her road sprinting exploits, the 25-year-old has won nine national track titles, three of which came in the scratch race. The event is not in the Olympic programme, but comes within the four-part Omnium, alongside the tempo, elimination and points races.
“The Omnium event is completely different to only the scratch race,” Wiebes said. “We have to see what’s coming these next couple of years. Maybe I first need to ride a full Omnium to fully decide what I want.
“I don’t really like the elimination race. That’s a big thing,” she laughed. “I have four years to get used to it, so we will see what the future brings. It’s somewhere on my mind.”
The Dutchwoman hovered near the back of the pack for most of her Track Worlds debut in Ballerup, Denmark. When the bell rang to signal the final lap of the 40-lap race, she darted to the front, putting three bike lengths into her rivals. She then bowed and shook her head in disbelief as she came across the line victorious.
“I expected that somebody will pass me still in the last lap, so that was surprising,” Wiebes said. “We did race scenarios during training, and we knew that if I was leading with one lap to go, it will be ideal for me. But it was really also instinct.
“I said to the coach before, ‘We need to do it through instinct, and not think too much, because anything can happen.’ I found a good wheel, and I felt with one and a half laps to go, I needed to start moving up more to the front. It worked out perfectly.”
Wiebes was only down for one event at this year's Track Worlds, meaning she now leaves with a 100% record. Her brief appearance, she explained, came because of proximity to her last road race, the Simac Ladies Tour, where she won three stages and the points classification.
“It was so close after Simac that you can have only a few days of rest, only spinning the legs. For me, it’s quite an ideal preparation. I didn’t have to do any training anymore, just keep the shape and continue to the next event,” she said.
Can we expect to see her racing more on the track in the future, as her SD Worx-Protime teammate Lotte Kopecky does? “We have to see if it’s possible with the road programme, of course. I’d like to show this jersey in some scratch races next year,” she said. “It’s possible, but you have to find a good balance for it.”
