Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) won the women's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, outsprinting Lotte Kopecky (Team SD Worx-Protime) in the sprint of a group of four, with Lidl-Trek's Elisa Longo Borghini and Shirin van Anrooij in third and fourth.
“It was my debut here in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and of course, you want to give it your all. I couldn’t believe that it would be enough for the win today, but I’m really, really happy,” said Vos after the finish.
In her first-ever participation, the 36-year-old veteran closely followed Kopecky when the world champion attacked on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, closing the gap to solo frontrunner Longo Borghini over the climb with Van Anrooij.
Kopecky tried to shake off her companions on the Bosberg, but Vos was very attentive and was right on her wheel. Van Anrooij and Longo Borghini returned after the climb and tried to play their strength in numbers by attacking in turn, but in the end, Van Anrooij led the group onto the finishing straight.
Longo Borghini launched a long sprint, but Vos accelerated out of Kopecky's slipstream to take the win.
How it unfolded
A break of three took off in the first 20 km of the 127.1-kilometre race: Marieke de Groot (Proximus-Cyclis), Rotem Gafinovitz (Hess Cycling Team), and Brazilian champion Tota Magalhães (BePink-Bongioanni) quickly built a four-minute gap.
Marieke Meert (VolkerWessels) and Maaike Coljé (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) went on the pursuit and made it to the front three with 76 km to race. The peloton wasn’t concerned and let the gap balloon to 7:30 minutes 70 km from the finish before slowing clawing time back.
When the break started the two-kilometre cobblestone section of the Haaghoek with 35 km to go, they were just over three minutes ahead, and Longo Borghini made her move on the cobbles, going on a solo chase and quickly reducing the gap further.
A flurry of attacks on the Berendries, 28 km from the line, led to a group of favourites pulling away from the peloton. This group consisted of Kopecky, Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes (all SD Worx-Protime), Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), Vos, Van Anrooij, Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck), Thalita de Jong (Lotto Dstny Ladies), and Pfeiffer Georgi (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL).
Longo Borghini bridged to the break on the next climb, the Vossenhol, and proceeded to drop the former escapees in quick succession, going solo again 25 km from the finish. She held a ten-second advantage as she crossed the Dender river with 17 km to go and entered the Vesten, signaling the start of the Muur van Geraardsbergen.
Behind the Italian champion, Niewiadoma was pulling the group of favourites until Kopecky made her move into the steepest part of the Muur. She and Vos went past Longo Borghini who managed to follow their pace, and Van Anrooij made contact over the final bump, the Kapelmuur.
After the descent, the four riders had a ten-second advantage on a chase group with Vollering, Niewiadoma, Pieterse, and De Jong, and this gap increased further on the run-in to the final climb of the day, the Bosberg.
When Kopecky made her move there, Vos was on her wheel again, and the two Lidl-Trek riders came back soon after. Longo Borghini attacked at the ten-kilometre mark with Vos on her wheel, but Kopecky brought things back together. Then Van Anrooij went with six kilometres to go, and Vos closed her down. Longo Borghini made another move from the rear of the group, and Vos kept cool, forcing Kopecky to close the gap this time around.
Vos then launched her own attack with Van Anrooij as they passed through Denderwindeke, just under four kilometres from the line, and when Kopecky shut this move down, Longo Borghini went again.
Within the final two kilometres, Kopecky closed the gap, and Van Anrooij made a final attack that was again neutralised by Kopecky. This brought the quartet onto the final kilometre where Vos was the strongest in the sprint.
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