Tour of Britain Women stage 3: Lorena Wiebes sprints to victory in Warrington

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) sprinted to victory on stage 3 of the Tour of Britain Women to extend her team's winning record in this race, after Lotte Kopecky's back-to-back wins on stages 1 and 2.

The Dutchwoman was delivered perfectly to the finish in Warrington by her team, and once she launched her sprint could not be beaten. Charlotte Kool (dsm-firmenich PostNL) came closest in second, whilst Georgia Baker (Liv AlUla Jayco) took third.

Finishing in the bunch after leading out Wiebes, Kopecky remains in the race lead.

A two-rider breakaway of Jo Tindley (Pro-Noctis-200° Coffee-Hargreaves Contracting) and Maddie Leech (Lifeplus-Wahoo) were away for most of the day, with Tindley holding on for the longest after a mechanical issue for Leech, but the Brit was brought back with 12km to go ahead of the sprint finish.

After controlling for most of the day, SD Worx-Protime were easily the most organised team in the run-in to Warrington, and were never off the front on the peloton.

After a big effort from Christine Majerus, Barbara Guarischi did the first lead-out sprint, before Kopecky put in the final effort to drop off Wiebes in sight of the line. The Dutchwoman opened up and had a speed that couldn't be matched, with neither Kool nor Baker coming particularly close to beating her in the end.

"The team did a really good job all day with controlling the breakaway. We kept Christine, Barbara, Lotte and me together for the final, and Christine delivered us really good to the [final] corner in first," Wiebes said at the finish, before explaining that the line almost caught her by surprise.

"It was a really fast finish, and I saw ‘oh it’s only 200m to go’ so I started my sprint and I was happy to deliver for the team. It’s always nice when the girls do so much work to finish it off.

"Tomorrow, one more day to go, so we go again full for it."

The calmest day so far in the Tour of Britain Women

Rolling out of Warrington for a fairly flat 106km stage, the attacks started early on stage 3, and unlike the other days, one stuck quite early as Jo Tindley and Maddie Leech got away. Sensing that this may be the break of the day, the teams that had missed it continued counter attacking, but the two-rider chase attempt was shut down. The peloton seemed to want just Tindley and Leech in front, and were setting a steady but controlling pace as the gap grew out to two minutes.

With DAS-Hutchinson-Brother desperate to get a rider up front, the next rider to try and chase was Lucy Lee, who set off in pursuit just as everyone else seemed to settle down after 20km of racing. She got well ahead of the peloton, but was stuck in no-man’s land between the leaders and the bunch, struggling to get much closer than 50 seconds for a long time as the gap extended to three minutes.

With 65km to go over the top of one of the QoM climbs, the next counter-attack went as Emma Dimbleby (Alba Road Development Team) tried to chase down Lee. The peloton let her go, but approaching the next climb and the final half of the stage, the teams were being very vigilant, organised and keeping things in control.

On the next climb, a mechanical issue for Leech saw her briefly distance from Tindley, but she was able to join back on as the road flattened out. However, she soon had to climb off entirely to get a new bike, and had to chase to try to get back to Tindley, but to no avail. Meanwhile, behind the two chasers finally joined each other, and with 40km to go they caught Leech, making it three riders 1:35 down on Tindley.

With 30km to go, the chasers were caught by the peloton, leaving Tindley pushing on alone ahead of an organised bunch, led by SD Worx-Protime. The British rider had a decent advantage, but her chances looked slim as the WorldTour teams prepared for a bunch sprint.

At the intermediate sprint, Tindley took the maximum bonuses, but third overall Letizia Paternoster (Liv AlUla Jayco) crossed the line first from the bunch to take two bonus seconds and some sprint points. With 12km to go, Tindley was finally caught, and soon after it was Valerie Demey (VolkerWessels) who went on the counterattack, trying to disrupt a sprint finish, but she was only away for a couple of kilometres before being caught.

From here, it was all-in for the sprint finish, and the final few kilometres were basically SD Worx controlling things and setting up the sprint whilst dsm-firmenich PostNL and Liv AlUla Jayco tried – and failed – to get a look in. Running into the final kilometre in Warrington, the Dutch team and their train was perfectly positioned, and it was just down to Wiebes’ imperious final kick to finish things off and bag them their third win in as many days.

Kopecky continues to lead the overall ahead of a tough final stage around Manchester on Sunday, 17 seconds ahead of Anna Henderson (Great Britain) and 32 ahead of Letizia Paternoster.

For all the latest developments from the world of professional cycling, make sure to head over to our dedicated racing news section of the GCN website.