1st March – Omloop het Nieuwsblad Women: Ghent – Ninove
A cagey day over the cobbles saw the break go on to take race glory at Omloop het Nieuwsblad. It was a steady start to things before a group went clear, with all Team Picnic PostNL riders in the peloton. The advantage for those out front continued to grow and it became tactical in the peloton as to who should take up the chase, which resulted in the gap reaching a point that was no longer closable; as with 30 kilometres remaining it still stood north of ten minutes. In the bunch, Team Picnic PostNL came over the Muur well together as a group and went through the motions to set up a sprint for the minor places; with Pfeiffer Georgi showing a good turn of speed to take seventh on the day.
Georgi said: “It was a pretty interesting race. Last year the break also got about seven minutes so up until then it was all okay, but then we heard ten, 11, 12 minutes over the radio. However, I think it still wasn’t up to us as a team to chase but none of the other big teams took control either. It was still quite a big group and cagey for most of the race. We had four of us in the peloton after the Muur but the break was always going to win by that point so we just set it up to sprint from the small peloton for the minor places in the end.”
