With around 25km to go, another move was made. This time by world champion Chantal Blaak (Boels-Dolmans) with a smart move up the road to try and set up her team mate Megan Guarnier to take the stage, and the overall win, with two hard climbs approaching, the first of which being Cote de Old Pool Bank.
This 1km climb at a gradient of 10% was taken by Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle High5) ahead of Alena Amialusk (Canyon Sram) and Dani Rowe.
Amialusk and Rowe would take second and third once more on the final climb, the Cote de Cow and Calf but it wasn’t Borghini who would take the overall honours. It was birthday girl Megan Guarnier who would power up the climb after a perfectly timed attack to win the 2018 Asda Tour de Yorkshire Women’s race and bring the curtain down on another great sporting spectacle.
Belarussian Alena Amialiusik (Canyon-SRAM Racing) was the next rider home – 14 seconds adrift – with Great Britain’s Dani Rowe just three seconds further behind.
Those results meant Guarnier took the winner’s blue jersey – sponsored by Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries – with a 17-second advantage over Rowe, with Amialiusik two seconds back in third. Bonus points accrued on the line also meant Guarnier topped the best climber classification sponsored by Virgin Trains.
Stage one winner Kirsten Wild picked up eight points on the day’s two intermediate sprints and that meant she topped the best sprinter classification sponsored by Asda, while Team Sunweb triumphed in the team classification.
