Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) secured the victory at the one-day Altez GP Oetingen p/b Lotto, setting the tone ahead of the upcoming top-tier cobbled Classics this month.
Wiebes made a late-race attack over the circuit’s main ascent, Bergstraat, which split the field apart, and then outsprinted a five-rider group to take the win in Oetingen.
Thalita de Jong (Lotto Dstny Ladies) finished second and Josie Nelson (Team dsm-firmenich-PostNL) rounded out the podium in third place.
The one-day cobbled races continued in Belgium with the 119.3km race in Oetingen, often used as an opener for the weekend’s top-tier race at Ronde van Drenthe.
The route offered two main circuits with the first tackled twice and included three ascents over Congoberg, Rensberg and Oetingen. Then the field completed five laps of the finishing 12km circuit, and each included a climb over Bergstraat before a short descent into the finish line.
A breakaway of three emerged at the halfway point that included Christine Majerus (SD Worx-Protime), Franziska Koch (dsm-firmenich-PostNL) and De Jong.
UAE Team ADQ, Fenix-Deceuninck at later Visma-Lease a Bike set the tone at the front of the peloton holding the gap to the breakaway at just under a minute.
As SD Worx-Protime hit the front with a flurry of attacks, a front group split from the main field with a chase group emerging that included Wiebes and Chantal van den Broek Blaak (both SD Worx), Nelson, Marte Berg Edseth (Uno-X Mobility), Silke Smulders (Liv AlUla), Linda Riedmann (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Femke de Vries (GT Krush Rebellease).
The chase group caught the three breakaway riders with 20km to go, and Majerus almost immediately attacked the group of 10 into the Kasseide cobbled sector. The race came back together, however, ahead of the final lap with Visma-Lease a Bike and Lotto Dstny Ladies pulling the field onto the final circuit.
SD Worx-Protime took over at the front in anticipation of a bunch sprint, with Team dsm-firmenich-PostNL also among the lead-out trains forming in the final.
But as the field hit the foot of the final climb Bergstraat, it served as a launching pad for Wiebes to make her late-race attack with just over 2km out, and the field split apart behind her.
A small group formed at the front that included Wiebes, De Jong, Nelson and Uno-X Mobility riders Maria Giulia Confalonieri and Marte Berg Edseth.
Uno-X Mobility pulled a reduced group downhill and into the final kilometre, but Wiebes was fastest in the sprint to the…
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