The Women's Tour: Amy Pieters wins stage 2

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Amy Pieters (Team SD Worx) has won stage 2 of The Women's Tour in the sprint of a small group. 

On the last of 10 laps of a rolling circuit east of Walsall, a group of 10 riders went off the front on the climb of Barr Beacon and increased its advantage to the finish. 

In a fast sprint after a downhill run-in, Pieters beat Clara Copponi (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) and Sheyla Gutiérrez (Movistar Team) to the line to win the stage.

As the peloton finished 42 seconds behind, Copponi takes over the leader’s jersey on stage placing countback. Going into the stage 3 ten-mile time trial, Pieters is second overall on the same time as Copponi. Gutiérrez in third place is six seconds behind.

How it unfolded

It was a reduced peloton that set off from the Walsall Arboretum in the rain: Tanja Erath (Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank), who crashed the previous day, Emma Boogaard (Team Coop-Hitec Products), and pre-race favourite Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) had had to abandon the race on stage 1. 

Additionally, Liv Racing’s Alison Jackson and Jeanne Korevaar as well as Boogaard’s teammates Caroline Andersson and Ingvild Gåskjenn could not start stage 2 due to injuries sustained in a crash in the final of stage 1.

There were intermediate sprints at Barr Common on the fourth, sixth, and eighth lap and mountain sprints at Barr Beacon on laps five, seven, and nine before returning to the centre of Walsall for the finish after 102.2 kilometres.

It was a race of attrition with riders being dropped at the back, and despite many attempts to attack, there was no real breakaway. Nina Kessler (Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank) won the first and third intermediate sprint, placing second in between, to defend her red sprint jersey.

A group of eight riders including Ella Harris (Canyon-SRAM), Gutiérrez, Christine Majerus (Team SD Worx), Liane Lippert (Team DSM), Chloe Hosking (Trek-Segafredo), Amber van der Hulst (Parkhotel Valkenburg), Maëlle Grossetête (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope), and Teniel Campbell (Team BikeExchange) briefly held a 25-second lead on the fifth lap but was reeled in before the Barr Beacon climb.

Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) won the two first mountain sprints, and this was enough to take the green QOM jersey off Demi Vollering (Team SD Worx). On the penultimate lap, a group of sixteen with, among others, Harris, Évita Muzic (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope), Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo), Pfeiffer Georgi (Team DSM), Pieters, Veronica Ewers (Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank), Elena Pirrone (Valcar-Travel & Service), Copponi, Alicia González (Movistar Team), Anna Christian, and Joss Lowden (both Drops-Le Col s/b Tempur) got away and contested the last QOM sprint 25 seconds ahead of the peloton, but they were caught again at the start of the final lap.

This final lap saw more action with several attacks, and on the lower slopes of the now-unclassified Barr Beacon climb, ten riders broke free: Copponi, Vollering, Gutiérrez, Pieters, Juliette Labous (Team DSM), Chabbey, Aude Biannic (Movistar Team), Georgi, Maaike Boogaard (Alé BTC Ljubljana), and Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Trek-Segafredo) were 30 seconds ahead at the top of the climb and increased their advantage further on the downhill run towards Walsall before sprinting for the stage win.