The official opening of Ardennes Week, the Women’s peloton rolled out of Maastricht this morning initially faced with a 157 kilometre hilly route and a finish in Berg en Terblijt, just a couple of kilometres after the famous Cauberg climb. However, an incident ahead of the race saw it neutralised after around 50 kilometres, and eventually three laps of the finish circuit would be fought out to decide the winner. With the shortened nature it was set to be an explosive second part of the afternoon, and it was very start-stop in nature with lots of attacks before a slowing of the pace. Team dsm-firmenich PostNL rode well as a unit to keep Pfeiffer Georgi and Juliette Labous in position as the kilometres ticked down. It all came down to the last ascent of the Cauberg where the attackers were caught, while Georgi and Labous dragged their way up the climb in the front group. Going into a slight headwind to the line the late attacks, including one from Labous, were quickly brought back and a sprint finish was set-up. Using her experience in the lead-out, Georgi surfed the wheels and launched a strong sprint, giving everything to the line to take fourth place.
After the finish, Georgi said: “I hope that the everyone is okay after the incident earlier. When we stopped and had the neutralisation, we had a discussion together and knew it would be crazy from the restart. The tactics were quite simple from then, just trying to stay in a good position on the course and look after me and Juliette. I didn’t feel super good today but the rest of the team was really strong and looked after Juliette and I really well all day. It was a fair sprint in the end, the others were just faster than me. Fourth is still a nice result and it’s a good way to wrap-up the spring for me on a personal note.”
Labous added: “We hope that the people involved in the incident are okay. For my riding qualities it wasn’t the best scenario with the neutralisation and the change of route. We kept the focus though and said we wanted to give it full-gas for the three local laps. Pfeiffer had a good chance in the sprint but unfortunately there were still some strong sprinters left so we just missed out on that podium, but I think overall today we did a good job and we’ll keep fighting in the next races.”
