Van der Breggen shows her stripes at Omloop
Dutchwoman fights headwinds solo on the way to victory, reports James Shrubsall
Anna van der Breggen won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in imperious fashion at the weekend, showing she remains the woman to beat despite plans to retire at the end of the season and become a sports director with her team, Sdworx.
Following a whittling down of the bunch on the Muur-kapelmuur, the Dutch reigning world champion attacked on the Bosberg before soloing into Ninove with 23 seconds to spare on second-placed Emma Norsgaard (Movistar).
Van der Breggen’s team-mate Amy Pieters came in third at the same time as Norsgaard, showing that while the team formerly known as Boels-dolmans may have a new name, it has retained its status as a force to be reckoned with.
Canyon-sram’s Hannah Barnes also contested the sprint for second place as part of the 17-rider chase, coming in fifth. Lizzie Deignan (Trek-segafredo), having been caught the wrong side of a gap, rolled in at the back of the race.
“It is great to win in this way,” said van der Breggen after the race, which featured a 124km route from Ghent to Ninove in the Flanders region of Belgium.
“We had agreed in advance to go for the attack, [using] Jolien D’hoore if it was going to be a sprint. After my attack on the Bosberg, there was a lot of headwind in the last kilometres.
“However, I was confident because I knew the team was stopping behind me. This is a fantastic start to the new cycling season and a great introduction of
Sdworx into the peloton.”
It was the 30-year-old’s first race of the season and her second victory at Omloop, having won previously in 2015.
The Muur/bosberg one-two from which van der Breggen launched her attack is a familiar springboard – it was used in the Tour of Flanders for some years before the race switched to its current route.
In last weekend’s Omloop the pairing represented the seventh and eighth bergs and came at the end of a race
“It’s a great introduction of Sdworx into the peloton”
that saw a three-woman early break establish an emphatic lead that stood at over five minutes as they hit the first cobbled sector with 67km to ride.
At this point the racing began in earnest and the gap rapidly tumbled. Over the Molenberg with 43km remaining Sdworx took to the front, stringing out the bunch and eventually snapping the elastic, reducing the front group to 35 riders. The scene was now set for the finale and with strength in numbers, the odds always looked in the Dutch team’s favour – indeed, they placed all six riders in the top 30, four in the top 13.
Van der Breggen’s next appointment will be the Strade Bianche on Saturday (6 March), where she will be looking to repeat her 2018 victory.
Read Elinor Barker’s interview with Anna van der Breggen on p26.