Wiebes celebrates over the line after storming to stage 1 victory(Image credit: Getty Images)
Wiebes in the race leader's red jersey(Image credit: Getty Images)
The final moments for the breakaway before they were fully caught 3km from the line(Image credit: Getty Images)
Pauline Ferrand-Prevót back in the women's pro peloton(Image credit: Getty Images)
French national champion Juliette Labous riding her first race for new team FDJ-Suez(Image credit: Getty Images)
SD Worx-Protime did a lot of the chasing on stage 1 for Lorena Wiebes(Image credit: Getty Images)
The peloton on stage 1 of the UAE Tour Women 2025(Image credit: Getty Images)
Coralie Demay left with a bloodied elbow after the high speed crash in the bunch(Image credit: Getty Images)
The breakaway passing the peloton on the other side of the road(Image credit: Getty Images)
The peloton on stage 1 of the UAE Tour Women 2025(Image credit: Getty Images)
All smiles for UAE Team ADQ at the start of their home race(Image credit: Getty Images)
Wiebes and the stage 1 winner's prize(Image credit: Getty Images)
Nienke Veenhoven took the first lead in the best young rider's white jersey(Image credit: Getty Images)
Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) claimed victory in the first stage of the 2025 UAE Tour Women.
Having been led out perfectly by her teammates, she took part in a drag race against her rival and Dutch compatriot Charlotte Kool (Picnic PostNL) but was comfortably the quickest.
Kool had to settle for second, while Nienke Veenhoven (Visma-Lease a Bike) was third.
The result means Wiebes will swap her European Champions’ jersey for the red jersey, as the overall leader of the race.
Wiebes opened her account in just her first race of the 2025 season, just as she did here last year at the same finish at Dubai Harbour.
Whereas Kool was forced to start her sprint early, running out of teammates on the finishing straight, Wiebes was guided into position by lead-out riders Marta Lach and Barbara Guarischi, who took control of the peloton from Human Powered Health following the crucial final corner inside the last kilometre.
The pair were side by side with a few hundred metres left, but Wiebes had fresher legs and a faster kick, ending up with a comfortable winning margin on the line.
"The feeling is really good," said a smiling Wiebes at the finish. "I think it was really a fair sprint. We were both [her and Kool] fully in the wind. I’m happy that my sprint is still at a high level. But there are still two stages to come, so I need to keep going.
"I think the team did a really good job to put us into position. It was chaotic, as expected. But we went well into the next corner, and then Marta and Barbara did a good job to do the lead out and drop me off at a good point. Charlotte [Kool] came at speed from the back, so first I had to catch her a bit back. I felt strong all the way to the finish."
How it unfolded
Many of the leading riders in the world assembled in the Middle East for the third leg of the 2025 Women’s World Tour. Today was the first of four stages of the UAE Tour, and, taking place over flat roads, was anticipated to be a day for the sprinters.
Crosswinds could have complicated that, given the exposed nature of the wide open desert roads, but conditions were calm and the peloton remained together.
Setting off from Dubai’s police officers club, Linda Laporta (BePink-Imatra-Bongioanni) was the first rider to make a move as she set off on a solo attack. Sylvie Swinkels (Roland) and Cristina Tonetti (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) formed a chasing duo behind but did not manage to catch her prior to the first intermediate sprint of the day situated 32km into the stage, allowing Laporta to take maximum points.
Those three riders eventually came together, and a relaxed chase in the peloton allowed them to gain a lead that exceeded eight minutes at its height.
That left the break to contest the second intermediate sprint, 66km from the finish. This time Tonetti took the spoils, coming round Swinkels before the line after Tonetti had been caught and passed following an early attack.
It was on the approach to this intermediate sprint that the peloton began to chase in earnest, with SD Worx-Protime among the teams to move to the front. Their work saw the gap between them and the leading trio plummet rapidly, from over seven minutes about 70km from the finish, to a mere 1-30 at 50km to go.
With 52km to go, there was a large high-speed crash towards the front of the peloton, with over 20 riders going down. Among those to fall were Mavi García (Liv AlUla Jayco), Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek) and Ashleigh Moolman (AG Insurance-Soudal), although nobody appeared too badly hurt. However, Letizia Paternoster (Liv AlUla Jayco) was forced to abandon as a result.
That crash took some of the impetus out of the chase, as the pace slackened and those caught out made their way back into the peloton. A large group of chasers rejoined about 40km from the finish, at which point the break still led by over a minute.
The leading trio fought on, remaining out front while the peloton bided their time in bringing them back.
Laporta was the first to be swept up 11km from the finish after she didn’t have the legs to respond to an acceleration from Swinkels. Swinkels and Tonetti still had plenty of energy left and managed to hold off the bunch for a while longer, before finally being caught 3km from the finish.
The final sprint then unfolded with a strong SD Worx-Protime lead-out guiding Wiebes around the final right-hand bend with 700 metres to go, before she easily outsprinted Kool for the win.
Stephen Puddicombe is a freelance writer based in Bristol. He has written for Cyclingnews since 2020, and has covered cycling professionally as a freelancer since 2013, writing for outlets such as Rouleur, Cycling Weekly and Cycle Sport, among other publications. He is the author of The World of the Tour de France, published by Sona Books. Outside of cycling he is a passionate cinephile, and a long-suffering Spurs fan.
