Simac Ladies Tour stage 1: Balsamo edges out Wiebes in tight sprint

Italy’s Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) executed a masterful sprint on stage 1 of the Simac Ladies Tour to win in Gennep, just edging out the season’s most prolific sprinter Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx) on the line.

Despite a strong lead-out from SD Worx and seeming unbeatable for most of this year, Wiebes was denied another win on Wednesday with Balsamo returning to victory after an injury-affected summer.

Prologue winner and race leader Charlotte Kool (dsm-firmenich) finished third and will hold onto the leader’s jersey.

Read more: Simac Ladies Tour prologue: Charlotte Kool blasts to victory

A few riders tried long-range attacks in the final 20km, but as expected the sprint teams brought everything back together for a bunch finish in Gennep, with Lidl-Trek doing a lot of the work and being repaid for it on the line.

“I really can’t believe it,” Balsamo said at the finish. “My teammates were unbelievable so I’m extremely happy. I just want to say thank you to all of them.

“It was an amazing lead-out, especially Ilaria [Sanguineti] did an awesome job. Then we were so close, but yes I’m just extremely happy.”

This was only Balsamo’s third win of the year, and her first at WorldTour level in 2023, after a nasty crash at the RideLondon Classique saw her suffer a double jaw fracture and derailed much of her summer season.

“It was a really hard season for me, coming back from a bad crash, so winning again is just unbelievable.”

A flat day with no shortage of attacks

Starting and finishing in Gennep, stage 1 of the Simac Ladies Tour followed the opening prologue and saw the peloton take on two long laps around the town, before a smaller finishing loop for 139km of racing. The big lap featured the Mookerheide climb, but being really only a small bump in the road, it wasn’t enough to make the stage anything other than a straightforward flat day.

It took some time for any break, but after 30km a group of three chipped off the front, containing a strong combination of Alice Towers (Canyon-SRAM), Quinty Ton (Liv Racing TeqFind) and Femke Gerritse (Parkhotel Valkenburg). However, recognising how threatening this group was, the peloton never let them have more than 40 seconds advantage and they were brought back after 50km of racing.

The regrouping spurred on another round of attacks, and soon a new trio went up the road: Amalie Lutro (Uno-X), Margaux Vigie (Lifeplus-Wahoo) and Femke De Vries (GT Krush Rebellease). A number of crashes affected the peloton in the middle of the race, with Maeve Plouffe (dsm-firmenich) and Kathrin Schweinberger (Ceratizit-WNT) abandoning as a result.

The new leaders still weren’t given much of a lead, around 30 seconds, but the peloton were happy to leave them out front for longer, though the time started coming down within the final 40km. Race leaders dsm-firmenich were controlling things in the bunch, keeping the pace high enough to discourage any other attacks.

The leaders were brought back at the 28km to go mark, and this sparked some aggression at the front of the peloton, though the high pace made it hard to get away. With 16km to go, original breakaway rider Femke De Vries attacked again, but her speculative attack didn’t last long and all was back together with 8km to go.

Quinty Ton and Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Deceuninck) were the next to try a long range attack with 5km to go, and briefly looked to have got a jump on the panicking peloton, but a big effort from Lidl-Trek brought them back before the sprint.

It was SD Worx who seemed to have the most organised lead-out in the final kilometre, but Elisa Balsamo launched early and fast and managed to hold off Wiebes to the line, edging the victory by just a few centimetres to take her first win since February. Wiebes took second, whilst Charlotte Kool was a step behind the duo who battled for the win, but third was enough to hold onto the leader’s jersey ahead of tomorrow’s time trial.

Head to the Simac Ladies Tour race page for the latest news and results from the race.