Wiebes Strikes Again And Tightens Her Grip On The Tour

Lorena Wiebes has turned the opening weekend of the Tour de France Femmes into a display of sprinting authority. One day after winning in Lausanne, the SD Worx-Protime rider was again untouchable in Geneva, beating Elisa Balsamo and Marianne Vos by several bike lengths to claim her second victory in as many stages.

The outcome looked far from certain until the final few hundred metres. Riejanne Markus attacked with around 40 kilometres remaining and built a lead of more than a minute. SD Worx-Protime had to commit almost its entire team to the chase, while Markus reached the final five kilometres still holding a 25-second advantage. Her resistance finally ended just 450 metres from the line.

With her usual lead-out exhausted, Wiebes had to improvise. She followed rival trains through the last kilometre, entered the finishing straight in a good position and launched a long acceleration that nobody could match. Balsamo took second and Vos completed the podium, but neither came close to challenging the yellow jersey.

The win was Wiebes' seventh Tour stage victory and her first while wearing yellow. She now leads Kim Le Court-Pienaar by 14 seconds and Demi Vollering by 16, although the general classification is expected to change when the race reaches harder terrain.

Stage three from Geneva to Poligny introduces longer climbs and 2,500 metres of elevation gain. Retaining yellow will therefore be a more complicated task, but Wiebes leaves Switzerland's second stage with the maximum possible return: two starts, two victories and a strengthened race lead.