Lorena Wiebes won stage 3 of the Tour of Britain Women, SD Worx-Protime‘s third straight victory in this year’s race.
Led out by Lotte Kopecky in the green leader’s jersey, Wiebes launched her sprint with 200 metres to go and pulled ahead. Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) challenged her but dropped her head in the final metres as Wiebes was a bike length ahead to take her team’s third consecutive victory. Georgia Baker (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) finished third.
The stage had been dominated by a two-rider breakaway. Jo Tindley (Pro-Noctis-200° Coffee-Hargreaves Contracting) and Maddie Leech (Lifeplus-Wahoo) had attacked with 102km to go and built a gap of four minutes, but Leech suffered mechanical problems and had to drop back after the second QOM. Tindley continued on her own before being caught about 12km from the line.
After a late attack by Valerie Demey (VolkerWessels) was closed down, the sprint trains took over. SD Worx-Protime were in control, taking the lead onto the finishing straight and delivering Wiebes to victory.
Going into the final stage, Kopecky leads the GC with a 17-second buffer on Anna Henderson (Great Britain) and 32 seconds to Letizia Paternoster (Liv-AlUla-Jayco).
“The team did a really good job all day controlling the breakaway. We kept Christine [Majerus], Barbara [Guarischi], Lotte and me together for the final, and Christine delivered us really well through the corner in first position,” Wiebes said after the podium ceremony.
“It was a really fast finish, and I was like, ‘oh, it’s only 200 metres to go’, so I started my sprint, and I was happy to deliver for the team. It’s always nice to finish it off after the girls did so much work. There is one more day to go, so we go full for it again tomorrow.”
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