Scottish National Road Race champion Becky Storrie and Olympian Anna Shackley will be among the names taking to the start line in Oxfordshire on Monday as the Women’s Tour gets underway.
Becky Storrie (CAMS-Basso) won the Scottish National Road Race Championship title in Alford by riding away from her two breakaway companions Beth Maciver (Torvelo Racing) and Beth Morrow (Storey Racing) to claim the White, Blue and Purple bands on the famous climb of Suie Road. The University of Stirling graduate has also made the step up from Brother-UK Team OnForm to CAMS-Basso making her eligible for the six-day UCI World Tour stage race.
Storrie will look to go well on stage three, an Individual Time Trial of 16.6km (10.3mi) – a similar distance to the 10 Mile Time Trial where she broke the Scottish record earlier this year.
Anna Shackley (SD Worx) comes into the Women’s Tour with a recent stage-race victory having won the Rás na mBan to claim her first victory since turning professional this year. The Milngavie rider will be another part of SD Worx’ attacking arsenal that contains Dutch riders Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, Demi Vollering and 2019’s third place rider Ami Pieters.
The six stages will see the race start in Oxfordshire, traverse the English Midlands, before heading south towards Southend-on-Sea before a grand finale in Felixstowe on Saturday.
Brit Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo), who Shackley supported so well in Tokyo, will be hoping to reproduce her win in 2019, whilst Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-Sram) will be hoping to go one better at the 2021 edition.
Make sure you tune into ITV4 throughouth the week, as they will be showing highlights at 8pm each evening. As ever, we’ll keep you across all the action via the Scottish Cycling social media channels.