Five current national road race champions headline the provisional rider list for the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, which gets underway next Thursday (5 June), from Forestry England Dalby in North Yorkshire.
The previously announced double Olympic gold medallist Kristen Faulkner (EF Education – Oatly) last weekend defended her American title, so will bring the famous Stars and Stripes jersey to the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, alongside a brace of African national champions, S’Annara Grove (CJ O’Shea Racing) from South Africa, and Kimberley (Le Court) Pienaar (AG Insurance – Soudal) from Mauritius.
A pair of European nations will have their national champions jerseys on the start line at Forestry England Dalby for stage one, with Finland represented by Anniina Ahtosalo (Uno-X Mobility) and Polish champion Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ) also due to race.
Fans will be able to follow their progress via BBC Sport, after the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women was announced as part of the BBC’s Women’s Summer of Sport. Live coverage of the race will be on the BBC iPlayer, as well as BBC Sport website and app, while fans can also watch via the Discovery+ service, and the Lloyds Tour of Britain YouTube channel.
In total 19 teams and 114 riders will take part, a record field for the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, with many eyes on Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek), who will line-up for her final Lloyds Tour of Britain Women.
The former world road race champion is one of five former stage winners in the race, alongside her teammate and another former world road race champion Elisa Balsamo, plus Australian duo Sarah Roy (EF Education – Oatly) and Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv AlUla Jayco), and Lorena Wiebes (Team SDWorx – Protime).
Wiebes, the current European champion, has an extraordinary record on British roads, having won over half of her races in the UK since 2019, with an incredible 14 victories, the most recent coming at Warrington during the 2024 Lloyds Tour of Britain Women.
The Dutchwoman currently sits second in the UCI Women’s WorldTour rankings and knows another strong performance in Britain will move her closer to the top spot. Wiebes is also one of six riders currently in the UCI top 20 who are due to race, alongside Balsamo, Pienaar, Marta Lach (Team SDWorx – Protime), Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ), and Chiara Consonni (Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto).
Olympic silver medallist Anna Henderson (Lidl-Trek) is the best placed rider from the 2024 Lloyds Tour of Britain Women to return, having finished runner-up last year, while another rider to watch will be Letizia Paternoster (Liv AlUla Jayco), who came agonisingly close to winning stage one 12 months ago, on her way to fifth place overall.
As always, the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women also provides a fantastic platform for British teams and riders to enjoy a UCI race on home roads, with all of the support of friends and families that brings.
Scottish team Handsling Alba Development RT will be looking forward to extra support on home roads during the final two stages and come to the race with riders in winning form, after Lauren Dickson won the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, and Kate Richardson took her first UCI win at the Tour de Feminin in Czechia, with overall victory.
Robyn Clay (DAS Hutchinson) took her maiden UCI win in the same race and is set for a Lloyds Tour of Britain debut, while April Tacey (Great Britain Cycling Team) is another coming to race after recent UCI level success in Europe, having won the Omloop der Kempen.
Two other Brits to look out for will be the youngest riders in the field. At 19 years and 39 days, Cat Ferguson (Movistar Team), 2024’s world junior time trial and road race champion, recently took victory in the Navarra Women's Elite Classic one-day race in Spain, while Imogen Wolff (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), 19 years and 71 days, won a stage and the youth classification in her first race of the season, the Vuelta a Extremadura, before going on to race in the Spring Classics.
The pair finished first and second respectively in last summer’s British junior road race championships, and less than a year later will make their debuts in the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women.
The full provisional rider list for the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women can be found .
To discover the routes of all four stages of the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women in more detail, and more information about the race, host venues, and participating teams, please click .
The Lloyds Tour of Britain Women gets underway in the Tees Valley and North Yorkshire on Thursday 5 June, with a stage between Dalby Forest and Redcar across the North York Moors National Park, before the second stage from Hartlepool ends with an uphill finish at Saltburn-by-the-Sea.
The race concludes with a pair of stages in Scotland, the first in the Scottish Borders, starting and finishing in Kelso, before the final stage in Glasgow on Sunday 8 June.
Following the final leg, fans and cyclists of all ages and abilities will have the chance to take part in the free Lloyds Tour of Britain Family Cycling Festival, building on Glasgow’s cycling legacy, and providing a unique chance to ride on the same closed road, traffic free, circuit as the world’s best. For more information on the Lloyds Tour of Britain Family Cycling Festival, please click .
