Carys Lloyd (Movistar) surprised everyone by winning the Ronde van Brugge ahead of Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) and Nienke Veenhoven (Visma-Lease a Bike) in a chaotic, crash-marred sprint in Brugge.
Despite strong winds, the race did not break apart into echelons. Instead, the riders were showered by hail and rain, and on the second passage of the Brieversweg cobbles, Alison Jackson (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) went on the attack.
The Canadian Champion was quickly caught again, and Jony van den Eijnden (Citymesh-Custom) attacked with 22.3km to go. Babette van der Wolff (EF Education-Oatly) bridged across, and they held a 20-second advantage for a while but were reeled in with 15.7km to go.
The race was kept together by the sprinters' teams on the run-in to Brugge. A crash with 2.3km to go took down Charlotte Kool (Fenix-Premier Tech) and broke up the sprint trains.
Pre-race favourite Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) was boxed in on the finishing straight, and instead Lloyd wound up her sprint on the right side of the road. Balsamo inched closer on the final metres but came up short against the 19-year-old Briton, who took her first-ever professional victory.
“We spoke about it in the bus as a little bit of a joke. My mechanic was like, ‘I’ll take you to the LEGO store, and you can buy anything if you win’, as a joke, but now, I was like, ‘oh my God, I’ve actually won’,” said Lloyd.
The 19-year-old profited from the chaos in the final but launched a clean and impressive sprint to beat everyone else.
“With about 500 metres to go, all the sprinters were just left with no lead-outs, and it was kind of just everyone for themselves. I saw 200 metres to go and was like, ‘OK, I just have to go for it and see what happens’. And it worked,” Lloyd was overjoyed.
And after the podium ceremony, she can look forward to a trip to the LEGO store.
“We will have to see, but maybe the most expensive thing I can find. Maybe see if I can make him [the mechanic] as broke as possible,” Lloyd finished.
How it unfolded
After eight editions as Brugge-De Panne, the race moved entirely to the capital of West Flanders, racing around the historic city in two circuits. A long loop of 84.7km was followed by a final circuit of 59km for a total distance of 143.7km. Two cobblestone sections, the 1,300-metre Brieversweg and the 950-metre Kerkstraat in Damme, would be crossed twice, and the exposed roads offered opportunities for echelons.
In the cold and windy weather, nobody wanted to go on the attack early on, and the race stayed together until the live broadcast began 83km from the finish. The tail-crosswinds along the Damse Vaart canal saw several riders dropped who formed an echelon to chase back to the peloton, but there were no splits other than that.
On the way back to Bruges, Ilse Grit (Citymesh-Customm) launched an attack but stayed off the front for less than two minutes before being brought back, and Kathrijn De Clercq (Lotto-Intermarché) won the premium sprint at the passage of the finish line with 59km to go.
A crash 45.8km from the finish took down eight riders of whom Mackenzie Coupland (Liv AlUla Jayco), Evy Kuijpers (Fenix-Premier Tech), and Meis Poland (VolkerWessels) had to abandon the race. A few minutes later, a heavy hailstorm came down on the race, eventually turning into rain. Although the sun came out again soon after, the roads stayed wet for the rest of the race.
Lauretta Hanson (Lidl-Trek) accelerated on the Brieversweg cobbles with 31km to go but was quickly passed by Jackson, who went all-in and opened a 50-metre gap on the peloton. But with no companions, the Canadian champion realised the futility of her effort and sat up after reaching the asphalt.
The pace was high on the exposed stretch along the Damse Vaart, but the wind wasn’t strong enough to force echelons. Van den Eijnden and Van der Wolff went away on a late breakaway but were always on borrowed time and quickly reeled in when SD Worx-Protime came to the fore.
On the run-in to the sprint, a crash brought down Kool, her teammates Christina Schweinberger and Millie Couzens, Elynor Backstedt-Calvert (UAE Team ADQ), and Quinty Ton (Liv AlUla Jayco).
On the finishing straight, Balsamo was led out by her Lidl-Trek team while most other sprinters were on their own. Lloyd found a gap on the right side of the road, launched her sprint earlier than everyone else, and could hold her speed to the finish line to win.
Results
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