Lorena Wiebes takes landmark 100th pro win with blistering sprint at Gent Wevelgem WE 2025
Cycling
After Mads Pedersen in the men's race, Lorena Wiebes has now also been able to celebrate victory at Gent Wevelgem this Sunday afternoon in Belgium, emerging victorious in the women's edition. Unlike Pedersen's long-distance solo though, it was a bunch sprint that gave Wiebes her landmark 100th win as a professional.
With 56km to go, the race was already beginning to split up as Lotte Kopecky launched an acceleration on the Kemmelberg. By the time the summit was reached, a 10-woman strong group had drawn clear with the world champion, also including the likes of Lorena Wiebes, Elisa Balsamo, Lucinda Brand, Elise Chabbey and Anna Henderson. Thanks mostly to the work done by Elisa Longo Borghini in the chase however, the group was soon brought back by the peloton. With the attacks continuing relentlessly, at 25km to go, another strong group of 12 held more than a minute's advantage over the peloton.
As things calmed down significantly once again following that though, heading into the final 10km the race more closely resembled the finale of a transitional sprinters stage at a Grand Tour, than the closing kilometres of a Classic. In that sprint for the line, no one could come close to European champion Lorena Wiebes as the Team SD Worx-Protime superstar powered to her 100th pro win ahead of Elisa Balsamo.
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- What very expensive legal affair?Caralladas03-04-2025
- Powless just got “better” at 28, Rog hasn’t gotten worse at 35, GT only really started getting going in GT late twenties. Give the guy a chance, he’s not even been let off the leash yet, remember what Jonas achieved GT wise since being given leader status.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Jorgenson turns 26 this year, he won't get much bettervappaxbipmv02-04-2025
- i completely agree. wouter has been through a meat grinder. he’s such a class act, a man of such character that he would never complain or make excuses, that’s why it’s so infuriating to hear him spoken about as if he was failing, choking, or in any way not fulfilling what’s expected of him. i get it, he’s a PRO, so part of what he gets paid for is to be a target for anyone with an opinion. fair enough. MY opinion is that he needs TIME to overcome a pile of injuries. i hope he gets there, because he deserves a pile of wins.OCexile02-04-2025
- I just went through the list of events in his recent riding history listed in another article (so not including his very expensive legal affair and any potential trouble at home) and it’s a half miracle he’s still riding at all. He's outfallen Roglič for sure, who always came away RELATIVELY unharmed.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- ugh. slice and dice this any way you like. if you’re one of the belgians TRYING to believe wout is going to be in the fight at de ronde and roubaix, this is an ice cold dose of reality. my opinion is that nobody — ESPECIALLY his own team — should have been fanning any expectations of wout at this point after what he’s endured.OCexile02-04-2025
- I guess when you’re high, you don’t (need to) focus on anything ;-)Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- True but things also change, Primoz will get older, Remco crashes, MJ isn’t peaking yet and people can improve their weaknesses faster than others improve their strengths, cf MVDP climbing, JV TTing.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- Sorry, yeah doesn’t look great but it seems all the recent context gets completely ignored in order to make a big story out of this. Honestly, did anyone at this point really expect Wout to suddenly have recovered all his missing form? Respect to Powless but he’s no nobody, his 2022-2023 presaged something like this. Yes they messed up but it also nearly worked, impossible to know how good your opponent is going to be in such a situation unkess it’s an in form Pog or MVDP. I’d not see this as a disaster but a really bad call, there are positives, they distanced a very strong 2nd group (Mads might be saving himself though) and Wout was very close to a place he’s not heen in a long time. I’d call that progress. Only a few meters would have led to completely different headlines. Why make everything so boack and white? Wout obviously understands and it is in part everyone putting all that pressure on him that led to him making a bad call. That said, had he let his mates go for the win (no guarantee either) héd have received different criticism.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- Pogi is just had 9 days of racing.
James2631802-04-2025