Vos wins fourth stage of Simac Ladies Tour Van den Broek-Blaak takes over lead
Vos wins fourth stage of Simac Ladies Tour, Van den Broek-Blaak takes over lead
Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) won the fourth stage of the Simac Ladies Tour on Saturday. The route for stage 4 of the Simac Ladies Tour was a technical and chaotic circuit near Sweikhuizen in the Limburg region of the Netherlands and favoured aggressive racing. Vos won the day from a group of three that rode away with 35 km to go. Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) finished second while Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (SD Worx) finished third.
Marlen Reusser lost the lead of the race to Van den Broek-Blaak who finished 21 seconds ahead of the Alé BTC Ljubljana rider.
Former Dutch national champion Anouska Koster (Jumbo-Visma) spent a long chunk of the race off the front. Behind her, the peloton went from group compact to small groups as wind and short climbs broke the race apart.
As the peloton crossed the finish line with 35 km to go, Niewiadoma attacked taking Van den Broek-Blaak and Vos with her. Van den Broek-Blaak started the stage second in the general classification, only ten seconds down. The three quickly caught Koster, while Reusser was left with only one teammate to defend her lead.
The leading group lost Koster just after 25 km to go, leaving Vos without a teammate in the breakaway. Into the final lap of the circuit, the gap dropped to 46 seconds, but a lack of organization favoured the leaders. The distance between the two groups finally tipped over one minute with 14 left to race which spurred Team DSM to take over the chase.
Niewiadoma attacked again with 1.8 km to go. The effort momentarily dropped Van den Broek-Blaak but couldn’t crack Vos and the three came back together quickly. The cat and mouse game started in the final kilometre and Vos was the one to take the lead. She was unbeatable in the finale, racking up more points in the green jersey classification.
Simac Ladies Tour (2.WWT) Geleen → Sweikhuizen
VAN DEN BROEK-BLAAK Chantal
VOS Marianne
JACKSON Alison
GEORGI Pfeiffer
SD Worx