Simac Ladies Tour: Alison Jackson holds off bunch sprint to win stage 1

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Alison Jackson (Liv Racing) won her first Women’s WorldTour race at stage 1 of the 2021 Simac Ladies Tour. After being part of a three-rider move earlier on in the race with Maëlle Grossetête (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) and Nina Buysman (Parkhotel Valkenburg), Jackson came to the line with Grossetête and held off charging sprint teams to take the win in Hardenberg. 

Grossetête took second and Lorena Wiebes won the bunch kick for third place.

It was the third instance in a short space of time that a breakaway has scuppered sprint hopefuls’ plans in stage races after the first two stages of the Ladies Tour of Norway unfolded in a similar manner. 

“I won the bike race,” Jackson said in disbelief after the stage. “I saw an opportunity early on and normally I’m waiting for the sprint but we’ve seen that long breakaways actually get a lot of success when you're with some strong people. Just happy that the other two bridged to me and yeah we worked hard and just snuck in that win and I'm just Yeah, super happy. A win is a win but it's been a tough year and I just really think it's a gift.” 

Jackson has taken over the lead in the overall classification from prologue winner Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma). She sits at the top of the GC standings on the same time as Vos, and three seconds ahead of Wiebes.

“Today was a good day. We did not take the initiative in the pursuit. Whether the gap was really impossible to close is difficult to say. In any case, it is great that the two leaders were able to maintain a lead. Lorena Wiebes was simply the fastest in the sprint of the peloton," said Vos.

How it unfolded

The first road stage of the race was a flat and technical day that was expected to come down to a bunch sprint. However, in keeping with a pattern of late within women’s racing the day went to the breakaway once again. 

Jackson instigated the move of the day with 107km of the 134.4km stage to go and 8km later was joined by Grossetête, and Buysman who bridged up to the Canadian.  

The gap to the three riders extended to over two minutes with 68km to go before the sprinter’s teams started to organise a chase. Movistar, Canyon-SRAM, Team DSM and Valcar Travel & Service put in work to bring the gap down to 1:50 before the intermediate sprint at 43km to go, won by Grossetête ahead of Buysman and Jackson. 

With 40km to go Sanne Bouwmeester of GT Krush Tunap made an attempt to bridge to the three leaders as the gap between the break and the peloton once again went out to over two minutes. Bouwmeester was caught with 30km to go having been unsuccessful in her chase. 

With just over 20km to go the main sprint teams began pushing the pace on the front and managed to chip away at the break’s advantage. However, it looked to be coming down to the wire with the three leaders maintaining a one minute gap with 14km to go.

Swiss national champion and Olympic time trial silver medallist Marlen Reusser (Ale BTC Ljubljana) suffered a crash with 13km to go as the pace started to increase. 

With 10km to go Buysman was distanced from her breakaway companions and with 8km to go she was caught by the peloton, leaving Jackson and Grossetête in front on the narrow roads leading into Hardenberg.

Movistar, Canyon-SRAM and Team DSM continued to work hard to pull back the remaining two riders but with under 5km to go the gap was still 22 seconds. At 2.9km to go the peloton had the pair in sight with a gap of 18 seconds but it was yet another miscalculation by the sprint teams as Jackson and Grossetête contested the win between them resulting in Jackson taking her first WorldTour victory. 

Lorena Wiebes proved herself to be the fastest sprinter in the peloton winning the bunch kick for third and undoubtedly ruing what could have been. 

Thursday's stage is a 17km individual time trial in Gennep that may see the general classification change hands once again.