Coles-Lyster and Jackson in top-11 of UAE Tour’s opening stage

The third round of the 2024 UCI Women’s WorldTour kicked off on Thursday with a bunch sprint victory and UAE Tour lead for SD Worx-Protime’s Lorena Wiebes, fifth place for Maggie Coles-Lyster (Roland) and eleventh for Alison Jackson (EF Education-Cannondale). World champion and Wiebes’ teammate Lotte Kopecky came ninth.

It’s the season debut for Coles-Lyster, as her compatriots in the four-stage UAE Tour, Jackson and Simone Boilard, have both taken on one-day January races in Spain. Boilard is in her first year with Norwegian squad Uno-X Mobility after two seasons with French outfit St Michel-Mavic-Auber93, swapping orange for orange.

The first stage was flat, eliciting three solo and duo breakaways, the last one lassoed just inside the final kilometre. Wiebes received an effective lead out from her team and held off Rachele Barbieri for her 72nd victory.

Lorena Wiebes wins the first stage of the @uae_tour ! #UCIWWT #UAETourWomen @teamsdworx pic.twitter.com/51Z2TmEpFo

— UCI_WWT (@UCI_WWT) February 8, 2024

After coming fourth in the final round of the 2023 WorldTour, China’s Tour of Guangxi, Coles-Lyster headed to the track, where she placed fifth in the women’s endurance category of the UCI Champions League. In one memorable round, Sarah van Dam and Coles-Lyster went one-two in the scratch race.

Friday’s profile is similar to Thursday’s.

2024 UAE Tour Stage 1
1) Lorena Wiebes (The Netherlands/SD Worx-Protime) 2:59:11
2) Rachele Barbieri (Italy/DSM-Firmenich PostNL) s.t.
3) Chiara Consonni (Italy/UAE Team ADQ) s.t.
5) Maggie Coles-Lyster (Canada/Roland) s.t.
11) Alison Jackson (Canada/EF Education-Cannondale) s.t.
32) Simone Boilard (Canada/Uno-X Mobility) s.t.