It’s not every day one gets a leadout from the defending champion of the Tour de France Femmes.
However, Marianne Vos revealed that she relied on her Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot to bring her into position to sprint against Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) on stage 2 into Geneva on Sunday.
In the end, she was no match for her compatriot, finishing third behind Wiebes, who secured a commanding second consecutive victory, and runner-up Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek).
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“Pauline brought me to the front, and I was trying to surf wheels because it was a bit chaotic, but that’s sprinting, I guess,” Vos said in a post-race interview at the finish line.
“Wiebes, when she finds her way out, she is the fastest. A strong win.”
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Vos also praised late-race breakaway rider Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek), who held off a determined SD Worx-Protime squad in the final kilometres of the race, only getting caught a few hundred metres from the line.
“It was an impressive ride by Riejanne because we were really, really going fast,” Vos said.
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While she gave credit to Visma-Lease a Bike for a job well done, too, she said SD Worx-Protime’s performance to bring Wiebes a second victory showed strong teamwork in reeling in an early breakaway which included Eline Jansen (VolkerWessels), Yuliia Biriukova (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi), Carlotta Cipressi (Human Powered Health), Eva Comte (Cofidis) and Anouska Koster (Uno-X Mobility).
And then, again, as they burned the entire team to bring back Markus just before the final straight in support of the yellow jersey.
“Our team did a great job today, but also their team was really good, chasing the breakaway and then, in the end, Riejanne,” Vos said.
Asked if she believes Wiebes could win a third consecutive stage on Monday’s stage 3, a 156.5km hilly race from Geneva to Poligny, Vos said, “We will see.”
“I think we saw yesterday how strong Wiebes is on the climbs. We will see; tomorrow is tough, with the longer climbs from the start, so we will see what happens.”
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