There were very few words exchanged between Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes when they met in the centre of the velodrome at the end of Paris-Roubaix. Wiebes had finished in third place – a respectable result – but this is not what SD Worx-Protime had come to the bike race for. The scene could not have been more stark a contrast compared to the end of Kopecky’s valiant Tour of Flanders victory last weekend. Unlike at the finish line in Oudenaarde six days before, here there were no hugs, there were no celebrations, there was barely even a smile. This is a team who do not like to lose.
Where did it go wrong for the world-beating women’s WorldTour squad in the Hell of the North? The plan, according to Wiebes, was out of the window after an early attack from Lidl-Trek’s diesel engine, Ellen van Dijk, put them on the back foot. Matches were burned in the chase as SD Worx domestiques were used up sooner than they would have liked. It didn’t take long for Wiebes and Kopecky, pre-race favourites and ‘joint leaders’ to be isolated in the front group. And how do SD Worx-Protime react when they are under pressure; a position they are rarely put in? The answer, it transpires, is not particularly well.
“With the attack from Ellen van Dijk, it was really dangerous to let her out in front because you know she can finish it off over a long distance. Maybe we burned our team a bit already – if we had more girls in the front group then of course we would try and keep the gap closer,” a dejected Wiebes told the media after the race.
Image: Zac Williams/SWpix.com
“At one moment I was leading into the sector and then Lotte attacked so it was really hard to accelerate again to follow. I said to her, please don’t do that when I’m leading at the front,” she added, painting a picture of confusing tactics and a lack of communication between the team.
The attack from Van Dijk would not be the last fire that SD Worx would have to try and put out throughout this year’s edition of Paris-Roubaix. The rest of the peloton are learning to capitalise on situations where the Dutch team are isolated and weak, and they did not stop turning up the heat as the race rolled on. It was Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s eventual winning attack which stuck, coming at 25 kilometres to go when neither of the SD Worx duo were able to respond.
“Pauline came with so much speed from the back and there were already some attacks before. We are only with the two of us in this group, so it's also hard to react to everything, sometimes you have to gamble,” Wiebes stated.
“Maybe we would have done things differently if we had like this crystal ball that we could use to see the future,” she continued flippantly. “But it’s racing, we know that Pauline is strong but you can’t react to every attack every time. If I’d known before, I would have done it differently, but it’s hard in a race like this.”
The final call from the team car was to put Kopecky on the front of the chase group behind Visma-Lease a Bike’s lone leader to try and bring things back together. The world champion did all she could in the closing kilometres of Roubaix, sacrificing her podium chances to give Wiebes an opportunity to win – but it was too little, too late. Ferrand-Prévot went on a solo march to victory, and the best SD Worx would come home with was a third place on the podium. For many teams, this would be enough, but the Dutch team’s high standards mean they are rarely forced to settle for less than the win.
“I cramped when they started attacking in the last four kilometres. And after what the team did today, I could not afford to get fourth place,” Wiebes said, reflecting on her performance. “Coming third is a mixed feeling because you want to win and on this team we really have a winner’s mentality. It's easy when you win all the races, but you cannot always win”
Image: Zac Williams/SWpix.com
Wiebes ended her analysis with positivity, saying that the outcome of Roubaix would not impact how she and Kopecky race together in the future. The party line remains that the two riders work well together as joint leaders, though Wiebes did admit that there would be a very “different post-race meeting on the bus after today.”
Regardless of the relationship between Wiebes and Kopecky, howver, the reality that SD Worx-Protime is facing is that they are being forced to innovate – the strength of the current peloton means that one attack will not always stick, especially in a race like Roubaix. If they want to continue the utter domination that has seen them reign over the peloton season after season, the tactical play needs to get better. Their disappointment at the end of the Hell of the North was palpable during that quiet exchange between Kopecky and Wiebes in Roubaix’s booming velodrome, filled with French fans who were cheering for their home superstar’s victory. As Wiebes says, her team wants those accolades for themselves, and will stop at nothing to get them back.
“When I look back to the rest of the spring Classics, I think I can be happy with what we achieved and it's still not over yet because the Ardennes Classics are coming up,” the Dutch rider concluded. “I think I’ll sleep a bit less than when I'm winning, but maybe I’m a couple of days I’ll manage to be proud of what we did today.”
Cover image: ASO/Thomas Maheux
