Kasia Niewiadoma sprinted to second place from a three-rider breakaway on the penultimate stage of the OVO Energy Women’s Tour today in Builth Wells, Wales.

A trio of Niewiadoma, Lizzie Deignan (TFS) and Elisa Longo Borghini (TFS) went clear on the hardest climb of the queen stage. Though the gap to the chasing group hovered between 20 to 45 seconds, the three riders held on until the finish line in Builth Wells. 

Deignan won the stage and moves into the leader’s jersey with a one second advantage over Niewiadoma going into tomorrow’s finale.

“That was a really hard stage. I was giving my all in that break in the final 20km. Lizzie was not really working until the gap to the chasers became small, and then when it went out over 40 seconds she stopped again and it was Elisa and I doing the work,” said Niewiadoma after the stage.

“I messed up the final corner with 200m to go a bit and then I sprinted as best I could. Actually I wasn’t that far off, and after working so hard, and then sprinting against Lizzie I can be happy how I sprinted. I’m pleased to get the QOM jersey and get our team on the podium for that. Now, we have one day to go so let’s see what’s going to happen!” added Niewiadoma.

Road captain, Tiffany Cromwell added, “Overall it was another solid team effort. Our plan was to fight for GC and get Kasia into the lead. A lot of teams wanted to get in the early break, which we were okay with, but we wanted to make sure it was the right constellation of riders.”

“I was suffering quite a lot for that first hour of racing. We weren’t happy with the make up of the first breakaway, even though Lisa was there, because there were several strong riders in it. First Alice chased the break, then I came to help, then Hannah also. That shows you how committed we were to our team plan to make sure we wanted to be in a good position right from the start of the race.”

“Finally, a five-rider move went that we were okay with, then it was like ‘oh good!’ We had a short respite in the middle of the race. Then, when the gap to the break was not moving from around 4:30 minutes, we had Alice and later Lisa helping to bring it down, in order to put Kasia into the best position possible before the last QOM climb of the day,” added Cromwell.

“I think overall we can be happy. Kasia put in an awesome fight, especially being up against two Trek riders. It’s now only one second on GC, and we’re all in to give every bit of energy we have left to try and get that jersey. As a bonus, we have the QOM jersey, so there’s a lot to play for.”

Tomorrow’s final stage is 125.9km from Carmathen to Pembrey Country Park in Wales. The tour is sponsored by Terrano Systems, as the Official Cycling Communication System Partner, and can be followed on Twitter with #UCIWWT and #OVOWT. The final stage starts at 10:00BST and will have highlights broadcast at 20:00BST on ITV4 and:

• Eurosport – Europe, Asia, Oceania  Europe, Asia
• fuboTV – USA and Canada  
• Flosports – USA and Canada 
• SuperSport – sub-Saharan Africa 
• Sky – New Zealand

For the six days of the OVO Energy Women’s Tour, CANYON//SRAM Racing has changed from it’s usual team colours, to the special edition design of the Rapha Women’s 100. The team is seen using special edition Rapha kit, Canyon bikes, Zipp wheels, Boa dials, Oakley eyewear, Giro helmets, Boa dials, Tacx bidons, and Speedplay pedals throughout the race.

About the Rapha Women’s 100: The Rapha Women’s 100 is an annual one day event designed to inspire more women to ride! Hosted globally at Rapha Clubhouses and by cycling clubs and by individuals alike, last year 10,000 women around the world rode 100km on the same day. Rapha encourages all female cyclists to join the global community and set up Women’s 100 independent rides locally. Rapha Clubhouses will host official rides led by Rapha ride leaders around the world which will be available to sign up on rapha.cc/womens100 on June 15th, the same day the kit will be available to purchase.

From its Koblenz home in Germany, Canyon Bicycles will also organise Women’s 100 rides on September 14th. To support the kit changeout at the OVO Women’s Tour, Canyon produced a special edition team bike inspired by the Women’s 100 colours. Learn more at www.canyon.com 

Facebook

Twitter