Lorena Wiebes wins second Tour de France avec Zwift stage in a row after Riejanne Markus' solo breakaway almost causes heartbreak for sprinters

Winning back-to-back Tour stages is impressive, but doing it in the yellow jersey? Just Lorena Wiebes being Lorena Wiebes. Here's how she did it 👇

On paper it looked like Stage 2 would be a relatively simple affair for Lorena Wiebes to do the double and win her second stage of this year's Tour de France avec Zwift. But not everyone agreed with that playbook and the latter stages of the race really made it far more edge of your seat watching than typical flat days.

At 94km to go, a group of five riders managed to establish a break which reached a gap of a couple of minutes but the peloton never really let it go too far. Anouska Koster (Uno-X Mobility) and Ema Comte (Cofidis) were the standouts of that breakaway, going for the Queen of the Mountain points across the several categorised climbs of the day.

Although it was classified as a flat stage, there were a few punchy climbs that tested the legs of some of the sprinters, including Charlotte Kool (Fenix-Premier Tech) and eventually Chiara Consonni (Canyon-SRAM). Both were distanced, taking them out of contention to sprint at the end of the day.

Eline Jansen (VolkerWessels), Yuliia Biriukova (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) and Carlotta Cipressi (Human Powered Health) also stuck in the breakaway for about 50km before the penultimate classified climb when Koster attacked and only took Comte and Jansen with her.

It was at this point when SD-Worx and some of the GC riders like Marlen Reusser decided to get a shift on and brought the gap below a minute. On the final climb, French national champion Celia Gery (FDJ United-Suez) attacked and caught the remains of the first breakaway.

Gery and seven other riders including Amanda Spratt (Lidl-Trek), Eline Jansen (Volkerwessels), Anouska Koster (Uno-X Mobility), Ema Comte (Cofidis), Nina Berton (EF Education-Oatly), Sara Casasola (Fenix-Premier Tech) and Sara Van Dam (Visma-Lease a Bike) looked like they could be a force to be reckoned with if they worked together, which didn't end up happening.

Frustrated, Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek) attacked and went solo with 39km to go. It looked an impossible feat to hold off the charging SD-Worx Protime team but Markus is a celebrated time trialist and had no problem extending her gap to more than a minute.

At one point it even looked like she might surprise the sprinters on a day previously designated for them. However, with SD-Worx launching Anna van der Breggen and Lotte Kopecky on the front, Markus was caught in the closing metres of the race, with Wiebes there to finish off the job, and launch her sprint without much of a fight from the rest.

Stage 3 looks to be a more difficult affair, with riders tackling a category 1 climb at the start of the day, so surely Wiebes won't be able to do the triple?

Overall general classification standings heading into Stage 3:

1. Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime)
2. Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) +14”
3. Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) +16”
4. Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly) +20”
5. Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L’Imad) s.t.

"Yes it makes it so special, but also because again our team, SD-Worx Protime worked really hard for it and the girls were chasing full gas in the final to bring back Riejanne Markus, so then it's even more beautiful to finish it off in the yellow. "

"Markus stayed a long time out, and at one point we also decided to put Lotte (Kopecky) in the chase because we needed everyone, and then I also knew it was up to me to find my own way and I found some good wheels and I could come out around 200 metres to go or so and then I just launched my speed."

🥇 Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime)
🥈 Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek)
🥉 Marianne Vos (Visma | Lease a Bike)
4. Shari Bossuyt (AG Insurance-Soudal)
5. Letizia Paternoster (Liv-AlUla-Jayco)

Lotte Kopecky spoke to Hannah Walker immediately after the finish, and said:

It wasn't as easy as she'd have liked, but she has taken a definitive victory yet again proving herself to be the fastest sprinter in the women's peloton.

They've left this right to the wire but here comes Wiebes, does anyone else have a chance?!

Will it be too little too late? Markus is giving it everything as the sprint trains look like they're going to crowd her momentarily.

10" of a gap left, surely they're going to catch her before the line?!

It's still only SD-Worx really doing any work on the front here, but the gap has come down to 19" as the sprint leadouts start to shuffle around.

And yet the gap hasn't really dropped below 30". This is getting a tad exciting now. I've had to shuffle my dogs out of the room.

We're quickly running out of sprint contenders here if the solo win of Markus doesn't come through. Kool is out of contention, Consonni is also out of contention, so it's going to be down to the usual suspects of Wiebes, Elisa Balsamo and I reckon Kim Le Court Pienaar or Lily Williams could be in with a chance here if it does come down to a sprint.

She's only got half a minute on the peloton, but she's doing a stellar job of keeping them at bay for now.

It's difficult to see this move sticking, with such firepower behind pulling on the peloton. But it would be nice, wouldn't it? Rip up the playbook a bit?

Anna van der Breggen has come to the front, which we all know means they're starting to worry about this gap she's got ahead. It's down to 48" but still a decent gap with only 16KM to go

The SD-Worx Protime pressure on the front of the peloton seems to have had an effect, if not the effect they want in closing the gap to Riejanne Markus. Charlotte Kool, one of the fastest women in the WorldTour has sadly been dropped once again, according to our comms team.

She's alright at this time trial malarkey, if I was SD-Worx I'd start to be getting a little bit worried here...

The SD-Worx Protime rider was pushing on the front of the peloton a little too hard and almost missed a turning there. She's back in front for now, and everyone managed to stay upright.

Despite struggling somewhat today, she's still leading the QOM classification by 1 point and thus will continue to wear the climber's jersey into Stage 3.

QOM Leaderboard:

1. Océane Mahé (Ma Petite Entreprise), 8
2. Anouska Koster (Uno-X Mobility), 7
3. Ema Comte (Cofidis), 6

Whilst the 8-person breakaway would have been a good, threatening group of riders to unsettle SD-Worx, alas, 'tis not to be. Markus of Lidl-Trek has taken things into her own hands and has already gotten 15" on the peloton as we head towards the final few climbs of the day.