Markus takes stage 4 ahead of Wiebes at Simac Ladies Tour

Riejanne Markus (Team Jumbo-Visma) won stage 4 of the Simac Ladies Tour. The Dutch champion attacked in the final kilometres of an attritional stage through the hills of Southern Limburg and got away.

Markus soloed to the finish to win the stage a few seconds ahead of yellow jersey Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) who beat Karlijn Swinkels (Team Jumbo-Visma) in the sprint for second place.

“I am super happy. We wanted to do things differently today, it’s very hard to beat Wiebes in a sprint, and we did everything to make it a hard race,” Markus said. “Anna [Henderson] was in the break for a long time, that was a great situation for us. I actually enjoyed it, we really raced with the team today. It was a really hard race, three times up the Cauberg and the other climbs, but very nice,” 

Wiebes keeps the overall lead going into the stage 5 individual time trial, and is now 20 seconds ahead of Swinkels in the GC with Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Trek-Segafredo) third at 27 seconds.

The Dutch road champion timed her attack well for the stage victory, countering from the back of the group with 6.3km to go, after several other moves had been brought back.

“Often, I go too early, so I reminded myself I had to keep calm. It was a good moment to attack, and in the end it succeeded. I knew I was gone, but I didn’t know that they wouldn’t come back,” Markus said, who turned 28 on Thursday.