EDE — Olympic speed skater Sandrine Tas (Lotto Intermarché) stormed to her third professional cycling victory on stage 1 of the 2026 Eneco Tour Women in Ede on Wednesday, beating Charlotte Kool (Fenix-Premier Tech) in a powerful uphill sprint to claim the win in 1:51:24 and move into the overall lead.
Kool threw her hands in the air as she crossed the line in second, after trying to sprint from the wheel of Barbara Guarischi (SD Worx-ProTime) but being squeezed by the Italian towards the barriers and forced to restart her final effort. Opting for a different lane, Tas slingshotted to victory out of the slipstream of breakaway riders Talia Appleton (Liv AlUla Jayco) and Fariba Hashimi (Vini Fantini-BePink), who survived into the final 250 metres before being reeled in by the bunch, with Guarischi completing the podium in third.
"First of all, my team did a perfect job positioning me for the last corner, so I knew I was in the right wheel," said a delighted Tas. "When I saw they started the sprint on the left, I just went full on the right. It was quite a tough sprint; a little bit uphill, and I knew I just had to keep pushing even if lactic acid was everywhere, and I am so happy I managed to finish off the work of my team. Actually, I was in the wheel of Charlotte [Kool] in the last corner, but then in the end, I always like to do my own thing, find my own line, and it worked out perfectly this time." Thanks to her fourth-place finish in Tuesday night's prologue, Tas now leads the general classification with the winning bonus seconds, one second ahead of prologue winner Lieke Nooijen (Visma-Lease a Bike) and three seconds ahead of Kool.
Tas will look to defend the leader's orange jersey on stage 2, a 13.6km flat individual time trial in Tilburg that will decide the next phase of the race.