Lorena Wiebes sprints to victory in the opening stage of the Tour of Chongming Island

Lorena Wiebes added another sprint victory to her list by winning the opening stage of the Tour of Chongming Island. The Dutch rider finished off the work of her teammates and now leads both the general classification and the points classification. Lisa van Belle will wear the polka-dot jersey in the next stage, as she leads the mountains classification. “A successful first stage,” said Lorena Wiebes, who celebrated with a Spiderman-inspired victory gesture.

Lorena Wiebes: “The team did a great job once again. With the small peloton, it was difficult to control the race. There were also a lot of attacks, but my teammates were fantastic. Lisa van Belle was part of one of the first breakaways and was able to take the polka-dot jersey. After the second intermediate sprint, we got away with a small group. But Human Powered Health had missed that move, so everything came back together."

"Then Femke Markus set a high pace. There were still some counterattacks, but one of our riders consistently responded to them well. Barbara Guarischi once again gave me a strong lead-out. At one point we briefly lost each other, but fortunately I was able to find my way through, and in the end everything worked out perfectly. We’ll go for it again tomorrow,” said Wiebes.

Sports Director Christian Kos: “This was another great day. The fact that there are only a few WorldTour teams here makes it more difficult to control the race, as attacks are given a bit more freedom. But our team did a very good and professional job today. Lorena Wiebes finished off their work perfectly. This is a great start to the Tour of Chongming Island, with three jerseys in our possession. We’ll try to keep as many of those jerseys as possible over the coming days,” said Kos.