Photo: swpix.com

Reigning European champion Lorena Wiebes (Team SDWorx – Protime), double Olympic gold medallist Kristen Faulkner (EF Education – Oatly), and recent Liège-Bastogne-Liège winner Kimberley (Le Court) Pienaar (AG Insurance Soudal) are among the star names to be confirmed for the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, which gets underway on Thursday 5 June.

With 20 days to go until Britain’s biggest professional women’s cycle race begins, organisers have announced the first batch of star riders who will be lining up for stage one from Dalby Forest in North Yorkshire, to Redcar on the Tees Valley coast.

Wiebes, who is ranked third in the world and will be racing in the European champion’s jersey, won the third stage of last year’s Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, and has a fine record when racing in Britain, having taken another dozen victories in UCI races in the UK since 2019.

Joining her on the start list is fellow 2024 stage winner and former Australian road race champion Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv AlUla Jayco), and Kimberley (Le Court) Pienaar. The latter’s win at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in late April came at the end of a strong spring campaign, that saw her finish in the top six in each of Paris Roubaix, the Ronde van Vlaanderen, and La Flèche Wallonne single-day races, highlighting her strong form as the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women approaches.

While hailing from Mauritius, where she is a three-time national champion, the final pair of stages in the Scottish Borders and Glasgow will be extra special for Pienaar, whose mother hails from Scotland.
Also familiar with Scottish roads is Danish rider Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto), who won a bronze medal in the World Championship road race that finished in Glasgow city centre in 2023, and the mountains jersey at the Women’s Tour of Scotland in 2019.

Completing the first batch of riders to be confirmed for the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women is Kristen Faulkner, who is from Alaska originally, and will be racing in the stars and stripes jersey of American national road race champion.

Faulkner took a memorable solo victory in road race at the Paris Olympics last summer, before a few days later winning her second gold medal in the team pursuit event in the velodrome.

Commenting on racing at the Lloyds Tour of Britain, Faulkner said; "I'm really excited for the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women. It is going to be a lot of rolling terrain which is unique to the UK and I actually really like that so I'm quite excited.

“After a slow start to my season and coming back from an injury this winter, I'm really excited to have a big goal and I'm hoping to peak for the Tour of Britain so that'll be a really exciting goal for me to look forward to and to have as a key race in my season."

Further team and rider announcements for the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women will be made in the coming days.

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 here.

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 here.