The day after winning stage 1 of the RideLondon Classique, Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) was unassailable once again on stage 2.
After an excellent lead-out up Market Hill from Lotte Kopecky, Wiebes had no trouble sprinting to victory on Maldon's High Street.
Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) came from behind and just pipped Kopecky to second place.
“I had quite a good day and enjoyed racing here, I was able to get the full bonus seconds on the climb twice," said Wiebes after the stage.
"We had a crash with almost half the team, I was really lucky that I was able to land on my feet. But Lotte and Femke Gerritse were also involved, and we had to chase back a bit. But luckily, we all came back, and Lotte did an amazing final.
With her back-to-back stage victories, Wiebes now leads the GC by 20 seconds over Kopecky and 21 seconds on Letizia Paternoster (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) and Kool.
“That’s really great, and I hope we can hold it until tomorrow evening. Besides the crash, it was a good race today, and I hope I can finally celebrate on The Mall,” said Wiebes, who was already looking to Sunday’s stage 3 in London where she has won twice before – but in 2019, she profited from Kirsten Wild’s relegation, and in 2022, the finish was on the Victoria Embankment.
How it unfolded
As Wiktoria Pikulik (Human Powered Health), Kate Richardson (DAS-Hutchinson-Brother UK), and Carlijn Achtereekte (Visma-Lease a Bike) did not start stage 2 after crashing the previous day.
112 riders went onto the roads around Maldon for 142.6km, first heading northeast for a 39km loop before doing almost three laps of a 39.9-kilometre circuit with the QOM sprint on North Hill in Little Baddow and intermediate sprints in Wickham Bishops.
Although there were several attacks, nobody succeeded in forming an early breakaway. Kool was involved in a crash with 95km to go. The Dutch sprinter was quickly back up, but her teammate Megan Jastrab, Anastasia Carbonari (UAE Team ADQ), and Karolina Karasiewicz (BePink-Bongioanni) had to abandon the race.
Wiebes took maximum QOM points and bonus seconds on the first ascent of North Hill and also won the first intermediate sprint before she and her teammates crashed and had to chase back, returning quickly and going on to win the second QOM.
Ahead of the second intermediate sprint, Canyon-SRAM tried to get a breakaway going, but Kopecky was attentive and did not let anyone slip away. The intermediate sprint was won by Margot Vanpachtenbeke (VolkerWessels), and then SD Worx-Protime, Liv-AlUla-Jayco, DSM-Firmenich PostNL, and Uno-X Mobility lined up their lead-out trains ahead of the final ascent of North Hill.
Chiara Consonni (UAE Team ADQ) tried to anticipate the uphill sprint by attacking just ahead of the 800-metre climb, but she was reeled in halfway up, and Kopecky put on the pressure, cresting the climb ahead of Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek) and Soraya Paladin (Canyon-SRAM) and reducing the peloton to 50 riders with 12.2km to go.
A move by Cédrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT) was followed by five other riders but quickly neutralised by Kopecky. Maike van der Duin (Canyon-SRAM), Lauretta Hanson (Lidl-Trek), and Marte Berg Edseth (Uno-X Mobility) were the next to attack; they got a small gap but were reeled in again just before the five-kilometre mark.
On the last kilometres, nobody could get away from the sprint trains, with Uno-X Mobility and Team dsm-firmenich PostNL leading the peloton. Kopecky was sitting in third wheel going into the last 500 metres and pounced once the road went up, with Wiebes glued to her wheel. Pfeiffer Georgi (dsm-firmenich PostNL) also followed the World Champion but lost Kool in the process.
Kopecky went wide in the turn atop Market Hill, opening up the inside lane for Wiebes who sprinted away in the last 150 metres. Kool had just come back to Wiebes’ wheel but could not manage her acceleration but used Kopecky’s slipstream to build up speed and come past for second place, several bike lengths behind.
Results
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