Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) has big goals ahead in the coming weeks, with the Olympic Games and Tour de France Femmes ahead, but there was a moment on stage 2 of the Baloise Ladies Tour on Friday that it all seemed at risk.
The race leader, who had already swept to victory at the prologue and on stage 1, could be seen moving up toward the front of the peloton on her teammates wheel as the one kilometre kite approached to get ready for the sprint into Zulte. However, just moments later Wiebes suddenly shot out the side of the bunch and onto the verge of the wide road.
Something clearly hadn’t gone to plan but it was hard to tell from the footage just what. A social media post by SD Worx-Protime after the stage filled in some blanks.
Still there was far more at stake than ruining her perfect run so far at the Belgian race, where Charlotte Kool (dsm-firmenich Post NL) claimed the stage 2 victory and Wiebes finished eighth but still maintained the overall lead.
As well as the incident with Wiebes on stage 2, the run in to the line on stage 1 was marred by crashes – with two significant crashes within the final 10km, one with 7.2km to go took down about ten riders while another, relatively close to the front of the group, within 5km of the line saw several more riders go down.