Once teammates, now rivals, Charlotte Kool (Team DSM) proved herself as more than equal to Lorena Wiebes (Team SD Worx) in the women's UAE Tour on Sunday. Wiebes jumped early and looked sure to win but Kool's patience paid off in the headwind sprint. Cyclingnews breaks down the details of how the sprint played out.
With one stage win each, Lorena Wiebes and her former lead-out Charlotte Kool were the big favourites to sprint to victory on stage 4. Unlike the previous sprints, the final kilometres didn’t see late crashes as on stage 1 or echelons as on stage 2, promising an unencumbered sprint and the best test of each rider's ability and teamwork. However, neither lead-out worked exactly as planned – this early in the season, new combinations of riders still haven’t fine-tuned their teamwork.
Once a last attack had been brought back with 11km to go, the sprinters’ teams started to organise their lead-outs. On the wide roads through Abu Dhabi and along the Corniche, no team could control the race. Sprinters’ trains took turns at the front of the peloton before drifting back again, not wanting to expose their sprinter to the wind too early.
The eventual stage podium of Kool, Chiara Consonni (UAE Team ADQ), and Wiebes were still relatively far behind with 1600 metres to go, all sitting around position 30 in the peloton. While Barbara Guarischi (Team SD Worx) used the wider line through the outside of the right turn 1400 metres from the finish to move up with Wiebes on her wheel, Pfeiffer Georgi (Team DSM) accelerated out of it to move herself and Kool to the front.
Sticking to the left side of the road to force others into the wind, Emilia Fahlin (FDJ-SUEZ) was first to pass under the flamme rouge with teammate Gladys Verhulst on her wheel, followed by Liane Lippert (Movistar Team) leading out Emma Norsgaard. Behind Marta Lach (Ceratizit-WNT), Guarischi with Wiebes and Georgi with Kool were positioned very well, with Kool lurking to the right of Wiebes.
But when Fahlin swung off, Verhulst held back as she didn’t want to lead out the other sprinters. Human Powered Health used this opportunity to move forward in the middle of the road with Lily Williams, Kaia Schmid, and Marjolein van ’t Geloof, followed by three UAE Team ADQ riders – however, Consonni had decided not to follow her teammates but stay out of the wind on the left side. At the same time, Kool was boxed in between Soraya Paladin (Canyon-SRAM) and Femke Markus (Team SD Worx), losing Georgi’s wheel.
The road narrowed from four lanes to two with 600 metres to go, and the Human Powered Health train took the lead. Verhulst, Norsgaard, Maria Giulia Confalonieri (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team), and Lach moved to the right to stay in Williams’ slipstream, and this opened a gap on the left for Guarischi to start her lead-out just after the 500-metre mark.
Guarischi went all out with Georgi on her wheel and Wiebes behind that while Kool had drifted back to 21st position, and when Guarischi had emptied herself 250 metres from the line, she and Georgi looked around for their respective sprinters. Coming from behind, Mylène De Zoete (Ceratizit-WNT) used this lull to jump away. Wiebes reacted by launching her own sprint with Norsgaard on her wheel.
In the middle of the road, Consonni had found her teammates again, but there was no time for a regular lead-out anymore as Marta Bastianelli was exhausted, Anna Trevisi started sprinting herself, and Silvia Persico almost touched wheels with Bastianelli and Roxane Fournier (St Michel-Mavic-Auber 93).
All this happened just as Kool spotted an opening between Norsgaard and Confalonieri and launched off the wheel of Giorgia Bariani (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo). Consonni came just in time to latch onto Kool’s wheel, and as De Zoete, Sarah Roy (Canyon-SRAM), Verhulst, and Norsgaard faded in the headwind, Kool and Consonni manoeuvred their way close to the barriers on the left side of the road.
Wiebes was two bike lengths ahead 150 metres from the line but Kool had stayed out of the wind until then and flew past, winning the stage by more than two bike lengths herself. Consonni pipped Wiebes for second place with a bike throw.
Whether through patience, pure power or both, Kool has stamped her mark and firmly established herself as the heir apparent of the women's sprints so far this season.
