Lorena Wiebes began her season just as she has the last two, powering to victory on stage 1 of the UAE Tour Women and claiming the Red Jersey for the fifth time in her career. After a tense middle phase marked by several echelon attempts, led mainly by UAE Team ADQ and FDJ United – Suez, the stage came down to a sprint in Madinat Zayed, where the Dutch champion won convincingly ahead of Lara Gillespie and Zoe Backstedt. Worth noting was an off day for Neve Bradbury, runner-up in 2024, who finished the stage 3’16” down.
Speaking in the press conference, the stage winner and Red Jersey Lorena Wiebes said: “We always aim for starting a season this way. It takes a bit of pressure off. First sprint stages are always hectic from the start. With the wind, it was nervous in the bunch from km 0. We decided to start the lead out earlier than usual. Confidence is very important. Good numbers in sprint training helped me to get this confidence. But you don’t know what the others are doing in the peloton. I’m glad it worked out well today. 10km straight to finish the stage is the hardest terrain to win a sprint”.
The White Jersey Zoe Backstedt said: “It was absolutely not the plan for me to make the top 3 today. We were sprinting for Chiara Consonni. But we got a bit lost in the last few kilometres and I found myself close to the front, so I decided that I just had to go for the sprint. Maybe for the future it would be nice to have a stronger sprint and be maybe a little bit closer to Lorena [Wiebes] but that’s the goal for everyone in the sprint. What I have now is very useful for the classics. I’m not used to this warm weather here in the UAE. But the next two days are going to be hard. They are sprint days again and the final day is going all in on the climb for Kasia [Niewiadoma] and Neve [Bradbury] basically”.
STAGE RESULTS
- Lorena Wiebes (Team SD Worx – Protime), 111km in 2h26’17”, average speed 45.528 km/h
- Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) s.t.
- Zoe Backstedt (Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto) s.t.
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION
- Lorena Wiebes (Team SD Worx – Protime)
- Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) at 4″
- Zoe Backstedt (Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto) at 6″
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