Stage 2 of the Vuelta a Burgos Féminas was a day to forget for SD Worx-Protime as their GC contender, world champion Lotte Kopecky, was held up by a crash with 30km to go and ended up losing a lot of time, putting her out of the fight for a good GC result.
“This was a bad day. Until the crash, there seemed to be no problem. Lotte narrowly avoided a crash herself, but she was held up. That was the signal for some teams to go all-out. We did what we could in the chase, but with about four riders you can’t compete with an unleashed peloton,” sports director Christian Kos did not sugar-coat the events.
Marie Schreiber and Barbara Guarischi were with Kopecky in the chasing group, and Femke Markus was called back to help in the chase, but it was all for nought, and Kopecky crossed the line 1:46 minutes down.
“We had hoped to take sporting revenge by winning the stage with Lorena Wiebes. She got over that tricky climb well but missed the extra punch to jump with Marlen Reusser and Mie Bjørndal Ottestad who placed their attack at the perfect moment. In the end, Lorena won the sprint of the remaining group quite easily, but that doesn’t buy us anything,” Kos was understandably disappointed with the stage result.
The team is out of the general classification now: While Wiebes is still third overall, the stage 3 Picón Blanco summit finish will be much too hard for her. Instead, their attention turns to stage victories.
“This stage race is not over yet. We have to put this stage aside. It is what it is. We won’t let our heads hang. There are two more stages where we can do nice things. So we are going full steam ahead with that,” finished Kos.
