'We’ll build on this' – Charlotte Kool bows to unstoppable Wiebes at RideLondon Classique
Runner-up on two stages and second overall for dsm-firmenich PostNL sprinter as SD Worx-Prꦺotime rider dominates

Just as the day before, Charlotte Kool (dsm-firmenich PostNL) could not threaten Lorena Wiebes and her SD Worx-Protime team on the final stage of the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:RideLondon Classique. Still Kool comf꧒ortably beat everyone else to take her second runner-up spot in a row and was still upbeat about her performance in the three-day race.
“I think it was actually a good weekend. I felt way better than in the Vuelta, for example, and I think I&🍨rsquo;m getting there, so we are going in the right direction,” Kool said after the stage.
Like Wiebes, Kool was also almost involved in a crash on t👍he third of eight laps, and the 25-year-old thanked one of her teammates in particular for keeping her out🐼 of trouble after that.
&ld♓quo;It was quite chaotic. It was a kind of crash, I was standing still and was clicked out a bit, so it was a bit of a shock that I survived, to be honest. But we came back really quickly. and then Daniek [Hengeveld] did an amazing job keeping us all safe, I was really impressed by what she did.
"In the sprint, they came re🌞ally fast from behind, so I t💛hink, yeah, fair enough,” said Kool.
Although she couldn’t repeat her 2023 stage and overall victories, with Wiebes in a class of herꦉ own as she swept up all three stages, Kool enjoyed the stage 𝔉in the British capital.
“It’s always really ꦑspecial. It's not often that you can race in the middle of the city of Lond🐼on,” she said.
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On each of the three stages, the lead-out from world champion Lotte Kopecky was a vital part of Wiebes’ victories – but 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:the final sprint was a work of art.
In a departure from the usual arrangement, Kopecky was riding on her own, sitting in the seventh row of the peloton with 3km to꧂ go, while Wiebes was further forward on the wheel of Barbara Guarischi.
At the flamme rouge, Guarischi had brought Wiebes to Kool’s rear wheel where the star sprinter stayed through the turn onto Spur Road ♓as Guarischi took the inside lane to move herself up into second position on the wheel of Gasparrini.
Guarischi then dove into the turn onto The Mall to take the lead with less than 400 metres to go, and at the same time Kopecky also took the inside lane to get in front of Wiebes without having to spend more energy than necessꦏary.
The world champion immediately started her lead-out from fifth position, passing Kool at the🌌 200-metre mark and making her go after her while Wiebes was still in Kopecky’s slipstream. When Wiebes launched her own sprint, Kool had already made her first kick and the rider, who lost her usual last lead out Rachele Barbieri from the front group earlier in the stage, had nothing left to answer with. Wieb⛦es, therefore, took her third consecutive sprint victory.
"Everything looked really good until we lost Rachele in the lead-out so we missed her," said 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Kelvin Dekker in a team statement. "I think you can also see that💟 in the last 500 metres that it was the little🅺 push that we missed to really fight for the win.
"I think we did as good a job as possible and ༺Charlotte did a good sprint, but we just missed that little bit, so second it is and second on GC. We know what to work on and we&ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚrsquo;ll build on this.”
Lukas Knöfler started working in cycling communications in 2013 and has seen the inside of the scene from many angles. Having🐻 worked as press officer for teams and races and written for several online and print publications, he has been Cyclingnews’ Women’s WorldTour correspondent since 2018.