Third for Josie Nelson at GP Oetingen

Today’s GP Oetingen saw the peloton take on a 119 kilometre route featuring a number of cobblestone sections and climbs throughout the day. A young team lined up in Belgium and got the race off to a strong start with Franziska Koch making a powerful break of three riders by the midway point.

As the race reached the final 20 kilometres, the trio out front were joined by six more riders including Josie Nelson whom were later caught by the peloton. It wasn’t over for Nelson from here though as she went clear once more in a strong move in the final kilometres before putting in a strong finish to take third place on the line.

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Joey Van Rhee added: “From the off we had a clear plan to go and fight today and really show what we have to help make it a hard race. We lacked a little early on but Franzi then opened the race properly, which wasn’t the plan but it was good to do this to really kick off the action. She went up the road with two others for a long time and behind the girls rode together quite well but there’s some improvements we can make there too.

“In summary, we did a lot of good things but there are also lots of areas we can improve around position and also if we have a plan to attack then we have to fight for that.

“In the end Josie was really strong and sharp. She was on Wiebes’ wheel on the two last laps so she was in a good position. On the last lap everyone went on the attack except Maeve and Elise to make the race hard. On the last kicker Wiebes went and won the sprint and Josie finished third from the five clear. It was a good race and especially the last part, but with points to improve for the races to come. Overall we can be happy with the third place for Josie.”