Lorena Wiebes and her SD Worx-Protime team were forced to really fight for victory on stage 2 of the Tour de France Femmes, burning through their whole line-up of riders to bring a late break back and set the Dutchwoman up for a win.
The team received little help from other teams all day, be it controlling the gap to the initial break or bringing back the later moves, including Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek) who very nearly made it to the finish.
Every single rider had to work on the front to chase Markus back, including their GC rider Anna van der Breggen, to the point where Wiebes had no lead-out left.
But considering the team have previously bemoaned the lack of support they get in situations like this, Wiebes brushed off any notions of annoyance when she spoke post-stage, understanding the reasons why rival teams raced the way they did.
"Today I was not frustrated at all about that. We have the yellow jersey in the team, so you need to work also for that," she said.
"Riejanne is of course a rider from Lidl-Trek and one of the biggest sprinters here, Balsamo, is from the same team, so it would be strange if they start chasing. I think some sprinters were also dropped, so we were missing some teams, and it also makes sense that Visma is not chasing and fully focusing on the GC with Pauline. So today, it was not frustrating at all."
In fact, Wiebes said she wasn't even worried about not catching Markus, despite the Lidl-Trek rider holding a gap of still 30 seconds into the final 5km.
"I never was thinking that actually. I was more thinking 'OK, maybe I need to launch my sprint really early to catch her back'," she said. "I knew that we were running out of girls, but you also know that at one point another team will take over for the lead-out, and I saw Jayco had a full lead-out train, so I had the feeling that it would not slow down in the last kilometres and that's a good thing for sprint trains."
Back at the SD Worx-Protime team bus, sports director Danny Stam did concede that the other teams' tactics did work in making it a much harder day for the team.
"Everybody saw that nobody wanted to help to keep the break back and it was all up to us," he told Cyclingnews. "I think it's extremely hard to bring a break back. I think that makes it more difficult. If we come with a bunch sprint, then we know that Lorena has a really big chance, but to keep the race under control, that was the hardest part."
Whether other teams should or could have worked, Stam did not give a firm answer, but did suggest that he would prefer to see more teams at least trying to go for the win.
"That's always a question mark, of course. Let's say, if you're with Lorena going to the sprint, the chance that you get beaten is big, but I always say if you have somebody out [front] you also know you don't win. I like to fight and to lose, instead of doing nothing and also lose," he said.
Wiebes' rivals employed basically the only tactic they have to try and beat her – put someone up the road and force her team to work – and fundamentally, it worked, as Wiebes did have to go into the finale alone and navigate her own sprint. But unfortunately for her rivals, even on the hardest day possible and when she's isolated, Wiebes' acceleration is still completely unbeatable.
With the efforts proving totally worth it in the end, Stam saw the fact that every rider had to get involved as a positive, rather than anything negative.
"I think it shows also a little bit the team spirit from the group that we all believe in Lorena," he said. "I think, as I say, we're in the Tour de France and it's extremely cool if you can win a stage, and we know that with Lorena we have a big chance and everybody is really committed to help. Cycling is more of a team effort than everybody expects."
In the end, there was little to criticise or challenge about SD Worx's tactics, but those looking to question something may look at the potential future cost of Anna van der Breggen taking a significant turn on the front.
Wiebes assured that that was Van der Breggen's own choice, and ultimately, it felt like something the team had to do without worrying about the consequences.
"We never know. It was 10 until five kilometres that she worked. I think it was necessary in the end," Stam said. "So we'll see in the end if that affected her or not, but this was something that we could not let slip through our fingers."
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