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A new Dutch world champion, four riders in the top five in the elite women’s race at the UCI Gravel World Championships, and yet the dominant reaction to Lorena Wiebes’ victory on Saturday was confusion.
The Dutch team, made up of 26 riders and clearly the strongest at the race, were on course for victory already through Shirin van Anrooij, who had attacked alone with 15km to go. However, riders who were ostensibly her teammates closed the gap, Van Anrooij was caught in the final kilometre, and a reduced sprint for the win occurred. She finished fifth, Wiebes finished first, and the post-mortem began.
