Team SD Worx dominate UAE Tour with three stages and overall win

Lotte Kopecky led her SD Worx team to victory in the 2nd edition of the UAE Tour last week, where the Dutch outfit took the overall victory, and three stage wins out of four. The reigning World Champion helped Lorena Wiebes to a pair of sprint stage wins with some great leadout work, before enjoying her own success on the race-defining Jebel Hafeet climb.

Australian Neve Bradbury would take second place, winning the Youth classification as a result, with Mavi Garcia and Gaia Realini the only other riders within a minute in third and fourth. The final stage almost stole the show, with a nail-biting finish as the breakaway tried to take its first UAE Tour win.

Stage 1: Dubai to Dubai (122km)

The opening stage was an out-and-back loop from Dubai, on a day where the wind didn’t quite blow enough to make use of the exposed roads. Lotte Kopecky still tried to split the field at 48km to go, but the wind wasn’t strong enough. She would claim a bonus second at the final intermediate sprint instead.

The expected first stage crashes marred the finale partly, Claire Steels of Movistar was one of those to go down with 12km to go, but she would get back into the group for the finish. Austrian National Champion Carina Schrempf tried to surprise the sprinters in the finish with an attack, but it was SD Worx who took charge around the final bend.

An earth-shattering leadout from Kopecky gave Lorena Wiebes a comfortable win, and the overall race lead. Rachele Barbieri was best of the rest in second, with Chiara Consonni in third.

Stage 2: Al Mirfa to Madinat Zayed (113km)

The wind was blowing in the right direction for Stage 2, and there were echelons early. SD Worx were well-represented with more than half their team in the front group, but when Kopecky punctured, they stopped contributing which doomed the breakaway to a catch. They wouldn’t rest on their laurels though, and Kopecky earnt another three bonus seconds at the second sprint of the day.

The route turned back on itself for this stage, meaning a headwind finish, and SD Worx played this perfectly. They looked to be overhauled early in the leadout by Liv Al-Ula Jayco but in fact they were just timing their run to perfection. Kopecky again the difference maker, Wiebes again the stage winner.

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Stage 3: Al Ain to Jebel Hafeet (128km)

It was time for Wiebes to repay the favour on the race-defining Jebel Hafeet climb, an undulating 11 kilometres carved into the mountainside of the UAE’s eastern border. The two-time stage winner would pace the peloton for the first few kilometres to whittle the group down to around 30, but heads didn’t start to roll until Gaia Realini got on the front.

Half in support of her teammate and last year’s winner Elisa Longo Borghini, and half in support of her own chances, the diminutive Italian ripped a group of six off the front, including her teammate. Spanish champion Mavi Garcia would soon take over and drop the 2023 winner, though.

With just three kilometres to go, Canyon/SRAM’s Neve Bradbury accelerated with such ferocity that no one initially had an answer. But Lotte Kopecky used the rolling final two kilometres, which suited her a little better, to attack herself and not only drop Garcia, but to catch Bradbury.

Since the major climbing was behind them, Bradbury knew her chances of winning were small. She tried to outsprint the virtual race leader, but that also came to nothing, and Team SD Worx had another stage win. Kopecky would hold at 13 second advantage going into the final stage.

Stage 4: Abu Dhabi to Abu Dhabi (105km)

A stage that should’ve been a formality for the sprinters, turned into anything but. The biggest breakaway of the race got an advantage of over three minutes at the halfway mark, and still had well over a minute at 10km to go.

Because of their previous success, Team SD Worx had to do much of the chasing on their own, but in the finale it was all hands on deck to catch FDJ Suez’s Amber Kraak, who dropped her breakaway companions one by one. She still held 30 seconds in the final two kilometres, where Schrempf took her second unsuccessful flyer of the race, and a race just after she was caught may have hindered the chase further.

Another heroic leadout from Kopecky put Wiebes in prime position to take a third stage, but the race was just a few metres too short, and Kraak was able to hang on to take her first win on the World Tour. Wiebes was denied the hattrick in second, while Kopecky came home safely within the group to win the race overall.

A textbook display of how to win bike races from Team SD Worx this week. The team who grabbed 62 wins last season are already four down in 2024, and with the big spring classics around the corner, they’re hard to bet against.

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