After creating history by winning the OVO Energy Women’s Tour of Britain for the second time, and receiving her award on the podium at Pembrey Country Park, Lizzie Deignan concluded that: “Racing in Wales was about as brutal as I expected it to be.”
Speaking in the post-race press conference, the Trek Segafredo team-member recalled her time training in Wales as a track-rider, saying: “As a track-rider, I spent a lot of time in the Newport Velodrome so we did all of our road training around Newport and I remember them being gruelling. I remember being in a bad place trying to follow the likes of Nicole Cooke in training in Wales, so I knew it would be difficult”.
Wales’ challenging terrain certainly did not disappoint in stage six, as the 30-year-old stated that her“main concern was the Black Mountains”.
Deignan went on to describe the final stage of the tour as being “hectic all day long”. She emphasised the extent of concentration that the stage demanded by stating that: “You couldn’t really lose focus because obviously we only had one-second on Kasia Niewiadoma.
“We were hoping that the break-away would stay away until that second set of sprints, so those seconds would be gone. However, it didn’t so I thought to myself ‘right, you’re going to have to get those sprinting legs on again’ and once we’d got that second, so we were up two seconds, it was a good position,” explained Deignan.
Faced with an array of emotions at the successful outcome of the tour, Deignan stated that: “I’m just incredibly surprised and grateful to all of my team-mates. I’m really overwhelmed with all the support we’ve received this week – it’s been really nice”.
Shock and surprise seemed to be the order of the day for Deignan, who claimed:“I never expected this outcome. I was here mainly to consolidate my first block of training and racing that I’ve done and my expectations were that, potentially, if I got the opportunity then I’d go for the stage, but I thought that wouldn’t happen.”
She added, “The first time it dawned on me that I had a chance for the GC was probably yesterday [talking about stage five], the whole race has been pretty open because of the bonus seconds. A stage race is always difficult, but a stage race with bonus seconds is even harder to predict.”
As well as securing a second overall victory, Deignan also obtained the Breast Cancer Care Points Jersey and the HSBC UK British Cycling Best British Rider Jersey – a very profitable tour for Deignan, one of which she will not forget in a hurry.
Image credits - SWPix
