After a two week break after the Tour of Scandinavia, Women’s WorldTour stage racing resumed last week with the Simac Ladies Tour, a six-day tour around the Netherlands and one of the longest-standing races on the calendar.
As expected from the Netherlands, the race featured several flat, sprint days, but also included a Queen stage on the hills of the Amstel Gold Race and a rare 18km time trial.
The race was totally dominated by the home nation, with five Dutch riders winning all six stages between them, as well as the overall and all the classifications. Some of the race was as expected – Lorena Wiebes and Team DSM swept up the sprints – but there were also some more surprising stage results, and the headline story of Wiebes taking the GC victory, only the third overall win of her career.
There are only two races left on the WorldTour calendar, plus the upcoming UCI Road World Championships, so here is what Cyclingnews concluded from the Simac Ladies Tour, and what we can learn going into the end of the season and beyond.
Lorena Wiebes is more than just a sprinter
Admittedly, Lorena Wiebes has perhaps been proving this all season, but taking the overall win at the Simac Ladies Tour really hammered home to anyone not yet sure: she is more than just a sprinter.
As the most prolific winner in the peloton, often dubbed as one of the only truly ‘pure’ sprinters in the sport, it can’t be denied that the 23-year-old is an excellent sprinter, but her talents extend past the fast and flat finishes. This was made clear on stage 4, supposedly the queen stage of the race, but the Limburg hills proved no issue for Wiebes.
She lost her teammates, which meant she had no chasing firepower in the finale to bring winner Riejanne Markus (Jumbo-Visma) back and settled for second, but she was not phased by the climbs like the Cauberg that saw many riders dropped. Wiebes’ ability to survive over climbs has been clear several times this year, but it seems each race, the climbs she can get over and still be competitive are getting harder and harder.
The ride that then really cemented Wiebes’ overall victory was the stage 5 time trial where she came fifth, limiting her losses to Audrey Cordon-Ragot and beating several good time trialists in the process. This was not a totally new performance – Wiebes has done well in prologues before, and took…
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