Lizzie Deignan, the defending champion of the OVO Energy Women’s Tour, headlines the start list for the 2017 edition of the UCI Women’s World Tour event that gets underway in Daventry, Northamptonshire tomorrow, Wednesday 7 June.
The 2015 World Road Race Champion leads the Boels Dolmans team, which also contains world number one and reigning Olympic Champion Anna van der Breggen, plus former stage winners in the OVO Energy Women’s Tour Christine Majerus and Amy Pieters.
“I’m very excited. It’s always a privilege for me to race at home in such a prestigious event. It’s developed into a race that everybody targets,” said Lizzie Deignan speaking ahead of the race start.
“I’m not very good at stage races normally; having the home crowd and a very strong team helped me achieve that victory last year. To be able to win a stage race on home soil was special.”
“I think it’s a great race,” added the current UCI Women’s WorldTour leader Anna van der Breggen. “I’m impressed with how it’s organised. All the time you see schoolchildren and people watching. That’s pretty different compared to Holland. I think seeing this stage race, it’s getting bigger and bigger. We don’t have many stages races and those that we do have been on the calendar for many years, so it’s really cool to have this new event develop at such a high level.”
“It’s different to ride here,” continued van der Breggen. “Last year I was really surprised by the roads. There are almost no straight roads here. I don’t know if you’ve been to Holland but there are only straight roads there! The roads go up and down all the time, it’s never flat, it’s really tough. You have to look out for everything. The stages are pretty long here, it’s going to be tough racing here for five days.”
Joining van der Breggen on the startlist are seven other Olympic medallists, including fellow 2016 Gold medallist Katie Archibald who leads Team WNT and 2012 Olympic Champion Dani King of Cylance Pro Cycling.
In total nine of the world’s top ten riders are on the OVO Energy Women’s Tour startlist, with Deignan joined by two previous former winners of the race, Marianne Vos and Lisa Brennauer.
