Lorena Wiebes only turned 26 last week. If you subscribe to the thought that athletes reach their peak at around 28, Wiebes still has two years to age until she reaches her supremacy. That’s a scary thought. For three of the past four seasons, no other rider in the women’s peloton has won more than her in each campaign. Win two more races – and she could feasibly do that before the end of this month – and she’ll have tasted victory in 100 professional races.
None of them, however, not even four successive Ronde van Drenthe titles or two European Championship victories, have been as meaningful as the one she picked up at a cold, wet and windy Milan-Sanremo. She first stayed with the climbers and then, after a mighty effort from Lotte Kopecky to pull Elisa Longo Borghini back, Wiebes outsprinted the rest.
A thoroughbred sprinter hasn’t won a men’s Sanremo since Arnaud Démare in 2016, but at 156km in length, it was unknown whether or not the women’s race would prove as equally resistant to the sprinters. Answer: it did not. “This one is really high on my list, it could be the biggest victory of my career,” the Dutchwoman beamed. “I think almost all of the top-10 of the UCI rankings were here and that makes it a really important race to win.
“I don’t have that [100 wins] in my mind when I start a race, but everything has happened really fast, from when I joined Parkhotel [in 2018] and later other teams. I still feel that every winter I improve myself and I’ve really found my place in SD Worx-Protime. Everything still needs to sink in, to see how the race went and how amazing and important this victory is for women’s cycling. It’s really nice to have it back and I hope in the coming years I will be back.”
The first Sanremo Women in 20 years, no one knew exactly how the race would pan out, least of all the competitors. “It was hard to say before the race how it’d end but I was really happy with how it went on the Cipressa and Poggio, and I knew I needed to be in a good position on the downhills.
“There were a lot of crashes before the Cipressa and some teams lost riders and maybe had to change their plans. I expected some teams to put a hard pace on the Cipressa, but they didn’t and that was really good for me. We were with four riders on the Poggio so we could enter the climb as we wanted and that was actually perfect.
“If I was still there in the group on the top of the climb, then the plan was to play my card. But if there was another attack and Lotte was there and had a gap to the group I was in, she was free to attack and go for herself. But we made a clear plan that on the downhill and flat if I was still there she’d work for me, and I’m really happy she did work for me.” Kopecky did more than work for Wiebes; she was essential to the victory. “When Longo Borghini attacked and stayed away, I saw Lotte coming. I know I can trust Lotte and she was really important. I’m really grateful for that.”
If the race distance were to be lengthened in future editions, perhaps the finishing group would have a different dynamic. “Maybe in the future it would be nice to race closer to 200km, if the rules allow it,” Wiebes added. “It’s something special that the men have and we could also have. I think we need to take it step-by-step, but it’s nice and important we have this race now. But of course, a lot of riders think it would be nice to have this as the longest race on the calendar and I think it would make it even more special.”
