World champion Lotte Kopecky was clearly in pain as she waited behind the podium to celebrate her third place finish on Stage Two of the 2024 Ford RideLondon Classique.
After crashing around halfway through Saturday’s 142km stage, she winced as she lowered herself down to chat with stage winner and SD Worx-Protime team mate, Lorena Wiebes.
“It [the race] was pretty good and pretty bad at the same time,” the 28 year-old Belgian explained. “I had nowhere to to go and hit some poles, and when I started again I could not really pedal, but then I tried to get better during the race and we finished it off quite nicely.”
After rejoining the peloton she was constantly chasing down counter-attacks in defence of race leader Wiebes, the Dutchwoman hoping to back up Friday’s opening stage win. She won the last of three Queen of the Mountains sprints in Little Baddow, then led Wiebes into the finishing straight, eventually taking third-place herself.
The race had been ridden at a high pace with Team SD Worx-Protime chasing down every attempt at a breakaway during the stage, which started and finished in the Essex town of Maldon.
“It was a pretty hard day yesterday [Stage One between Saffron Walden and Colchester] because no one wanted to help us chase, so we didn’t want to do the same and we wanted to keep the race a bit closer, so that we did not have to chase the whole day. But we also knew that with this course the race would make for more attractive racing.”
As well as Wiebes extending her overall race lead and leading the Sprints classification, the team had the opportunity to win the Queen of the Mountains competition had she won the final ascent of the race, but that went to Kopecky, with Rebecca Koerner securing the jersey for 2024, assuming she finishes tomorrow’s final stage in London.
“It was different with the fact there were bonus seconds on top of this climb, which also made all the GC riders try to gain seconds, which made it harder, but we were really just going for the win.”
Kopecky now sits second overall, 20 seconds behind Wiebes, and will be determined to add a podium finish at when the race concludes on The Mall tomorrow afternoon.