Baloise Ladies Tour: Lorena Wiebes goes two for two with stage 3b time trial victory

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) continued her dominance at the Baloise Ladies Tour and won the individual time trial on stage 3b Saturday evening. Marion Norbert Riberolle (Fenix-Deceuninck) finished second by 15 seconds and Thalita De Jong (Lotto Dstny Ladies) was another 2 seconds back in third.

Wiebes, who took the road race victory earlier in a split day of competitions, was the only rider to stop the clock under the 15-minute mark on the 11km course in Zwevegem, setting a time of 14:53.

"Winning twice in one day is something I haven't experienced yet. It is extra nice that it is in two different disciplines," said Wiebes after the second stage of the day. "This is my first time trial victory ever and it feels really good. I heard I had the fastest intermediate time, so it was important to ride as fast as possible to the finish.

"I had scouted the course this week and knew the lap would suit me. But the danger was that I would start too fast and blow myself up. I'm satisfied that I was able to pace it so well and thus extend my lead in the overall classification."

A total of 106 riders took the line for the time trial, with 16 riders not completing the morning road race, many of them caught in or behind a large crash in the opening 12km.

The GC leader carried a six-second lead over Charlotte Kool (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL), and another 15 seconds over Kool’s teammate Pfeiffer Georgi, after the stage 3a road race. Kool’s time was 51 seconds slower, and she dropped nine places to fall out of the top 10. Georgi finished 23 seconds off the winning pace and moved into second overall, though she is now 38 seconds back.

The big mover of the day was De Jong, who moved to third overall with her podium finish in the ITT, now 39 seconds behind Wiebes.

Wiebes has won four of the five stages so far in this year’s Baloise Ladies Tour. The UCI 2.1 stage race concludes Sunday with seven laps of a 16.5km flat circuit around Deinze, a total of 116.9km.

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