Lorena Wiebes has become such an inevitability that rival teams have stopped even trying to beat her in a sprint as she dazzled once again in front of Blackpool’s glitterball.

The Dutch SD Worx-Protime rider made it two stage victories from two on a disrupted day at the Lloyds Tour of Britain to retain the green jersey and points classification lead.

With a total of nine stage victories at the British leg of the UCI Women’s WorldTour, Wiebes’ dominance is turning the peloton to alternative tactics.

“We cannot win the sprint so why should we wait and see if Lorena wins anyway,” said Uno-X Mobility's Katrine Aalerud, the day’s most combative rider.

“She is the biggest sprinter and most of the time she will win the sprint so we just have to try and race our way, so why not just try the breakaway and see if it will succeed?

“Also, we succeeded in that action in the Tour de France Femmes (TdFF), so why not in other races?”

The Norwegian team were at the heart of two breakaway attempts, first through Dane Emilie Alberte Greve, before 31-year-old Aalerud made a sustained effort off the first climb.

She was ahead by 40 seconds when the stage was delayed mid-course due to a road traffic accident ahead of the convoy, causing it to be rerouted at 17.5km and the second Queen of the Mountain climb cancelled.

While Aalerud was caught on this occasion, it is becoming a characteristic of Uno-X, after Norwegian compatriot Sigrid Haugset took a stage victory at the TdFF after riding ahead and alone for 90km.

And they appear to be right in their assessment that it is the only way to beat Wiebes outside of the mountains, who eased away from the leadout trains to cross the line first.

“I take quite some confidence when it goes to a sprint,” said the 27-year-old. “But today was also quite hard because it was pretty much straight to the finish with 10km to go, so there was a bigger risk of getting boxed in.

“That’s why I started the sprint early at the end because I was afraid to get boxed in, but it was enough so I’m happy with it because there was a lot of headwind into the finish.”

SD Worx-Protime now hold three jerseys with Swiss rider Steffi Häberlin topping the Queen of the Mountains ranking, while Lidl-Trek’s Fleur Moors retained the young rider accolade, heading into a day suited to the climbers in Wales.

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