Rachele Barbieri sprints to 3rd at windy edition of Drentse Acht van Westerveld

A windy day in the Dutch province of Drenthe saw Team dsm-firmenich PostNL’s Women’s program take on the flat 127 kilometre long parcours, starting and finishing in the town of Dwingeloo. With the weather conditions, it was a fast and nervous start to the race and things already split in the opening ten kilometres with Daniek Hengeveld, Rachele Barbieri and Maeve Plouffe making the initial front group. However, things then split once more again and only Hengeveld and Barbieri remained in what was a leading group of around 30 riders.

That number slowly whittled down throughout the afternoon as the kilometres ticked by and coming into the finale Hengeveld tried some attacks to go clear either solo or drag a small group clear. Yet, it was soon clear that wasn’t possible and the duo’s focus switched fully to setting up Barbieri for the sprint finish in the last ten kilometres. Some good positioning work by Hengeveld saw Barbieri safely moved towards the front before she opened up early, launching a strong sprint in sight of the line. Unfortunately, two other riders just managed to pass the fast finishing Italian in the closing 50 metres, where she ultimately took a good third place with the team.

Barbieri said: “The echelons started basically at the beginning of the race. It was an attacking day so I’m happy we could be in the front from the start onwards. I think me and Daniek did a really strong race in the front. She was really strong and did a great job to position me for the sprint. Overall I’m happy about the result but of course there is a bit of me that hoped to win so I am a bit disappointed too. Maybe I went a bit too early in the sprint and they were just stronger than me at the end, so next time I will start the sprint later I think. We deserve a victory as we are racing really well as a team, so hopefully tomorrow we can get an even better result, and I’m looking forward to working with my teammates tomorrow.”

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Joey van Rhee added: “We had the plan to be in the front directly at the start. Immediately there were splits, and then a crash happened and soon we had a group of around 30 riders with Daniek and Rachele there. Then the group got smaller and smaller throughout the day. Daniek did some attacks to try and get clear but with only two it was quite difficult to play that game as a team so we also had it in our mind to go with Rachele for the sprint. I think we did almost everything perfectly as Daniek brought her into the finale in a great position, but Rachele maybe just opened up her sprint a little bit too early and ended up with a third place. We’re a bit disappointed as we of course always aim for more and hoped to have some more options in the front. Daniek and Rachele rode well together but in the end today there were just two other riders stronger than Rachele in the sprint. We’re looking forward to the next ones.”