Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) came into the 2025 Tour of Britain Women with an ambition to win the overall classification. However, crashes and bad luck meant that the European champion had to fight back to save her race by winning the final stage on Glasgow Green.
With the GC battle fought out in the intermediate sprints between Ally Wollaston (FDJ-Suez) and Cat Ferguson (Movistar), Wiebes stayed out of trouble before launching a monstrous sprint on the final lap of the race to extend her record as the rider with most wins in Tour of Britain Women history.
Wiebes crashed and fell out of overall contention on stage two, suffering an injury to her hand which made her uncomfortable on the bike in the final two stages. The initial disappointment had initially left Wiebes unsure if she would continue the race as it made its way north through Scotland, but the Dutchwoman rallied.
The team also lost lead-out rider Barbara Guarischi in a big crash on the third stage, but confirmed afterwards that her injuries were not as bad as first feared.
Wiebes and the team were pleased to put the bad luck behind them in Glasgow, taking a characteristically dominant bunch sprint win.
“We really went into the stage to finish it in a good way,” Wiebes told Cycling Weekly after the final stage. “It's been pretty much ups and downs. Luckily, the crash from yesterday didn't do too much damage for myself. I was feeling a bit better than yesterday on the bike… I felt pretty strong at the end and I'm happy that the sprint power was still there.”
“The team kept me really good in the front the whole race. In the intermediate sprints it's important to be more in the front, because they always open gaps in the peloton,” she added.
Wiebes questioned the decision by the UCI commissaires on the previous day not to neutralise the race after the crash that took out Guarischi also brought down around 15 other riders. She thought that it would have been safer for the race to have been paused at that time to allow enough medical personnel to be available for the remainder of the day.
“I think it was a mistake from the commissaires to not neutralise the race after the big crash," she said. "I mean, if only three riders can get through and multiple riders are screaming on the ground in pain, I don't think it's good to continue the race like this.”
“It's better to neutralise and then start again. Also, I think it took some time before the doctor was back in the peloton. There we also lost Barbara and she was pretty much important also for today's stage.”
Sport Director Christian Kos was delighted with his team’s show of resilience on the final day.
“It was necessary to go out with a bang because we didn't have the most lucky week with Lorena hitting two times the deck, a hard crash for Barbara Guarischi yesterday, so this is a nice lift up of the spirit.”
Despite the bad luck knocking Wiebes out of GC contention, Kos thinks that the experience at the Tour of Britain Women will serve her well as she looks to contend in hilly stage races going forward.
“If I look at the season, she's going over the hills really strong and she's improving every time I see her so it's not impossible. When we were looking at the stages we had the feeling it was not impossible to go for it.”
“Day one we were a little bit left out of teammates around us and also as a sprinter being the only one in the break then at least she had good legs, but then our luck changed a little bit, she crashed two days in a row putting us completely out of GC but without the bad luck I still believe she could have fought for the GC here.”
