The Baloise Ladies Tour began on Wednesday evening under the fading Belgian summer sun, with a fast and flat 2.7 kilometre long route around the streets of Hulst; where a promising start to the race sees Team dsm-firmenich PostNL end the prologue with three riders in the top ten.
Due to the nature of the course, all of the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL riders gave it their all on the short route. Good early times were set by the squad before Rachele Barbieri moved into the provisional top five when she crossed the line, stopping the clock in three minutes and 23 seconds. The penultimate rider down the ramp for the team was Pfeiffer Georgi and she would go on to best Barbieri’s time, cutting two seconds off it and completing the course in three minutes and 21 seconds. Last to leave the start gate was 2023’s prologue winner Charlotte Kool and she also put her sprint power to good use, surging around the course to just edge Georgi off the podium with Kool ending the day in third place.
Kool expressed: “It was a pretty simple course with a few turns and then some fast sections. It was a painful one though, and I just went all-in over the course to do the best I could and that was it for today. We’re looking forward to the sprint stages now.”