Wild's class holds off the bunch again, this time at Gent-Wevelgem

Kirsten Wild (WNT) took back-to-back Women's WorldTour victories, adding Gent-Wevelgem to Thursday's Driedaagse Brugge-De Panne win.

Kirsten Wild celebrates her 2019 Gent-Wevelgem victory, her second Women's WorldTour win in four days (Getty)

Kirsten Wild celebrates her 2019 Gent-Wevelgem victory, her second Women's WorldTour win in four days (Getty) Source: Getty

In almost a carbon-copy sprint finish of Thursday's race, Wild fended off Dutch compatriot Lorena Wiebes (Parkhotel Valkenburg) once again for victory. 

"It was a tough one, it was a long one," Wild said. "I lost my rider, Lisa Brennauer, for the lead-out, she punctured twice so she hadn't the legs anymore. But she put me in the right position and I just had to finish. 

"Actually the signs with the metres came a bit closer than I thought. I thought 'woah this is only 150 i need to go now.' So I wanted to wait long but it was still long but short."
Wiebes, now leading the Women's WorldTour young rider classification, demonstrated once again she'll be yet another Dutch force soon to be reckoned with. 

"I had a bike change in the last 10km so that was a little bit (of a) nervous moment but my team mates did a good job to bring me back. 

"Kirsten started the sprint, so I started to sprint. It's really nice to feel that I can sprint for the win. (The young rider's jersey) is not really a goal but it's nice to have, my bigger goal is to take podium places."
The headwind ultimately destroyed the success of multiple attacks throughout the race, including Sarah Roy's brief jaunt off the front with six kilometres to go, but it was all worth a try, Martin Vestby Mitchelton-Scott's DS said. 

“We had hoped to at least make the peloton smaller and the girls rode well together, we had the numbers there when we needed them over the climbs.”

“We were expecting some wind in final 20 kilometres but it turned a little bit so we had too much headwind in the end for anyone to be able to split it.”

“So, in the end we got a big bunch kick and that’s not really in our favour, we tried a sneaky move at the end with Roy but it didn’t come to anything unfortunately.”

The team lost Jessica Allen early when she abandoned after crash, just five kilometres in. 
Marta Bastianelli (Virtu) retained the WorldTour leader's jersey.

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2 min read
Published 1 April 2019 11:16am
Source: UCI, Mitchelton-Scott


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