nitrogenA number of riders from 15 teams will set off from Welshpool on Thursday morning as the renamed women’s Tour of Britain kicks off in mid-Wales. The four-day event is one of the key preparations before the Paris Olympics and will see Lizzie Daignan lead a strong British Cycling team.
World road race champion Lotte Kopecky and her SD Worx-Protime teammate Lorena Wiebes (who recently won all three stages of the Ride London Classique) are the biggest stars, while Deignan is the home favorite for the 2015 road race World Champion, in addition to double National Road Race Champion Pfeiffer Georgi, the leading British rider.
Thursday’s first leg heads north from Welshpool through Snowdonia and ends in Llandudno, with the second leg starting and finishing in Wrexham and encompassing rolling Cheshire farmland and Steep Horseshoe Pass.
Saturday’s third stage is flatter and centered around Warrington, while Sunday’s final will run through Greater Manchester, starting outside British Cycling’s headquarters at the National Cycling Center and ending with a visit to Ramsbottom Rake ( The climb begins after the Ramsbottom Rake – a very steep, handrailed pedestrian route – ending in Leigh.
Six months ago, when an air of doom and gloom hung over British women’s cycling, the event seemed dead after a bitter dispute between then promoter Sweetspot and British Cycling over non-payment of naming rights fees culminated in the agreement being terminated. .
Even in early spring, British Cycling – which had committed to running both the women’s and men’s Tour of Britain in 2024 after severing ties with Sweetspot – was in a precarious position due to a lack of a race director and title sponsor.
But the surprise appointment of former Team Sky and Ineos Grenadiers vice-captain Rod Ellingworth as race director of the Tour of Britain, coupled with a new sponsor Lloyds Bank injecting around £20 million into British Cycling, This has been a game changer.
British Cycling chief executive Jon Dutton admitted there were “many” moments when the task of staging the race looked impossible, with Ellingworth describing the planning process with local authorities as a “huge effort” “.
There is also a feeling that the tournament being replayed this year is a Test match in 2025.
“The bigger opportunity is beyond 2025,” Dutton said. “In terms of our ambition, we’ve got a lot more focus on what the game might look like in 2025 and beyond.”
Dutton and his team may want the tournament to be longer and hope to host a six-day event next year. They may also have hoped for more World Tour teams to take part – 11 teams took part in the London Classic – but the uncertainty of racing in the run-up to the Paris Olympics means riders have committed elsewhere.
“We are very pleased to have such a strong team join us,” Ellingworth said. “The world’s number one team joins several other teams in the global top ten, underscoring the importance of this event.”
For those who remember the dark days when the women’s race was canceled in 2023 and last winter’s Tour of Britain seemed to be over, the resurrection of both the women’s and men’s races is a triumph.
However, it has been difficult for British Cycling to run the event, and that can be seen at times. This is Ellingworth’s first road race and on a difficult route the gap in ability and experience between the World Tour team and some of the weaker teams could be worrying.
That said, a less structured race might give the lesser-known riders on the UCI Continental team a chance to shine. However, there is no doubt that Kopecki, who finished second in last year’s Tour de France and is expected to become a women’s Olympic road race medalist, is the favorite.
In the absence of sponsor Lidl-Trek, Deignan leads a British team backed by Welsh riders Elinor Barker and Elynor Bäckstedt and Visma–Lease a Bike veteran Anna Henderson.
