Lizzie Armitstead – Stage 3 win and Aviva Yellow Jersey in Derbyshire

Lizzie Armitstead powered to an emotional victory in Chesterfield at the end of the third stage of the Aviva Women’s Tour, outsprinting a trio of breakaway companions to move into the Aviva Yellow Jersey of race leader with two stages remaining.

The reigning World Road Race Champion crossed the line pointing to the sky, dedicating her win in Derbyshire to the memory of Jo Cox, the Birstall MP who was murdered yesterday.

Armitstead crossed the line clear of second placed Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio to now enjoy a five second lead over the Cervelo Bigla rider on the Aviva General Classification, with overnight leader Marianne Vos leading the bunch in for fifth, 36-seconds down.

The Boels Dolmans rider had led Moolman-Pasio and Wiggle HIGH5’s Elisa Longo Borghini across to the day’s breakaway group, catching the group of 11-riders shortly after the Strava Queen of the Mountains climb of Bank Road in Matlock.

Those eleven, who went clear after the feed zone and around 47-kilometres of racing, included the likes of Hannah Barnes, Chantal Blaak and Australian national champion Amanda Spratt, who went on to finish fourth.

Interview – Katie Hall QoM Stage 3 AVIVA Womens Tour 2016 by Cycling Shorts

Post Race media conference with Katie Hall Queen of the Mountains at the end of Stage 3 of the AVIVA Womens Tour 2016. #AVIVA2016

Lizzie Armitstead Yellow Stage 3 Winner Women’s Tour 2016 Interview by Cycling Shorts

Lizzie Armitstead takes control of the AVIVA Women’s Tour 2016 on Stage 3, Lizzies chats to the media.

While the break were working well together, they were powerless to stop the pursuit of Armitstead, Moolman-Pasio and Longo Borghini, with the trio making the junction after the summit of Bank Road having gone clear on the flatter valley roads following the Chain Reaction Cycles Sprint at Darley Dale.

Having missed the move, Vos and her Rabo Liv team chased hard, but with around 15-kilometres to go Armitstead attacked again, at first joined by just Moolman-Pasio before Longo Borghini and Spratt also made the junction.

The quartet worked well to hold off the chasing Rabo Liv, whose pursuit saw the remnants of the breakaway caught, allowing them to contest the finish in Chesterfield’s Market Place, with Armitstead leading out the sprint to take victory, her second ever stage win in the Aviva Women’ Tour.

Behind Vos outsprinted Armitstead’s Boels Dolmans teammate Amalie Dideriksen for fifth, ahead of Leah Kirchmann and Giorgia Bronzini.

In addition to the Aviva Yellow Jersey and a five second lead overall, Armitstead also retained the Adnams Best British Rider Jersey, with Dani King her nearest challenger in that competition, 47-seconds back in 15th overall.

Despite losing yellow Marianne Vos retains the Chain Reaction Cycles Points Jersey, 11-points clear of Stage One winner Christine Majerus,

with Vos’ compatriot Floortje Maackaij holding a 34-second lead in the Best Young Rider classification presented by Stoke-on-Trent, European City of Sport.

Armitstead: Going into the race our plan was we wanted a girl in the front group and I would jump across on that climb [Bank Road, Matlock].

We knew Moolman [Ashleigh] would probably be aggressive, cos she has been in previous races and shes got a kick. So we expected her to launch an attack. I didn’t expect it to go from the bottom! But she did.

I had a good lead-out from Ellen [Van Dyke] and Christine [Majerus] right into the bottom of the climb, so I was really well positioned.

I didn’t follow Ashleigh’s attack initially because I thought if I follow that acceleration, I’d blow-up.

I knew from peoples advice that it was a long steep climb, so I held them at twenty metres and crawled my way back up to them and got over the top with them. Then it was a bit of a slog to get up to the breakaway.

When I arrived, Chantal [Blaak] did some more work on the front and took us as far as she could.

I attacked them to bring the strongest girls in the race away, that was the idea!

Having been in the day’s 11-rider move, Katie Hall led the race across both Strava Queen of the Mountains climbs at Winster and Matlock to take a 14-point lead over Ilona Hoeksma.

For full results and standings following Stage Three, please click here.

Stage Four sees the penultimate stage of the Aviva Women’s Tour head from Nottingham to Stoke-on-Trent, which is celebrating its status as European City of Sport for 2016.  The stage departs from Nottingham’s Old Market Square passing via Swadlincote, Burton-upon-Trent and Uttoxeter before a run through the hills of the Staffordshire Moorlands to finish in Stoke-on-Trent city centre.

For more information on Stage Four, please click here.

Amateur cyclists can also ride part of the Aviva Women’s Tour route this year in the Tour Ride Northamptonshire, the official sportive of the Aviva Women’s Tour.  Taking place one month after the final stage, on Sunday 17 July, 40 and 80-mile routes starting and finishing from Delapre Abbey in Northampton will take place using sections of the Stage Five route, while there is also a fun, off-road 10-mile route for families. To sign-up head to www.tourride.co.uk

 

Content ©Copyright CyclingShorts.cc
All images ©Copyright www.chrismaher.co.uk | CyclingShorts.cc

OMNIUM – The New Online Cycling Apparel Store

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Style, Performance and Individuality from New UK Based Online Store OMNIUM 

I met Claire Pepper on a Bike Ride with Brunch organised by Queen of the Mountains and was excited to hear of her plans to launch OMNIUM a brand new, UK based, online store bringing together some previously hard-to-buy or as yet undiscovered cycling apparel from independent designers. Their focus is high performance road cycling kit and accessories, bringing together lots of smaller brands who are doing really interesting stuff and making them more accessible, especially to the UK market.

Claire’s background is photography, specialising in fashion and sportswear in e-commerce, and as a runner, cyclist and triathlete, she found women’s cycling clothing to be much more limited in terms of choice than the rest of the active wear market and decided to do something about it! With her partner Jonathan, a creative director and active racer for Dulwich Paragon, they have launched OMNIUM.

Most of the OMNIUM brands are small companies with a bit of a cult following, and until now some have been hard to get hold of in the UK. OMNIUM solves the problems of buying internationally such as customs charges and complicated returns!

The products are stylish, high performance, individual brands which will only be stocked in limited runs, keeping the offering of fresh and current items in-demand.

 

Starting with 7 brands and with 2 more coming soon, the selection comprises mostly of men’s and women’s jerseys, shorts, socks and caps. There are some eye-catching full kits from Minneapolis brand Twin Six and graphic-patterned base layers from Good Cycling, a brand from the Netherlands. One of the most popular items is a cap by Canadian brand Forward, which features a pair of cat-eyes on the underside of the peak.

Well worth taking a look if you would like to stand out from the crowd this summer!

 

OMNIUM BRANDS

  • Twin Six – USA – men’s & women’s jerseys with matching shorts, caps, socks, bidons
  • Angeles Creative – USA – men’s and women’s jerseys, high performance and distinctive
  • Queen of the Mountains – UK – high performance women’s jerseys, shorts and caps
  • Forward – Canada – women’s jerseys and caps, fun, playful designs
  • God & Famous – USA – caps and socks (apparel coming soon) urban styling
  • The Wonderful Socks – Italy – socks and caps, Italian craft heritage with quirky designs
  • Good Cycling – The Netherlands – men’s and women’s jerseys, base layers and gilets

 

WEBSITE : weareomnium.cc

TWITTER: @omniumcc

INSTAGRAM: @omniumcc

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Weareomnium/

 

 

Aviva Women’s Tour 2015 – Stage 1

All Image ©www.chrismaher.co.uk / CyclingShorts.cc

 

The start of the Aviva Womens Tour 2015 got off to a ‘smashing’ start for Lizzie Armitstead and members of the media, not quite the finish everyone was anticipating.

 

With the profile of the 110km stage it looked like it would end in a bunch sprint but with QoM’s points to contest just before the finish there could be an upset.
Some of the big name riders in the hunt for a win were Bronzini and Armitstead, with their teams Wiggle Honda and Boels Dolman respectively keeping the pace high.

Aviva Women's Tour 2015 | Stage OneKatie Archibald, Pearl Izumi, “I think this race has been designed with the TV in mind with possible bunch sprint finishes. Stage 4 has a really technical finish but we hope to have everyone fighting it out to the end. My role in the team will be to sprint with the other Katie [Curtis], we will be looking for that kick at the end, Sarah Storey and Ciara Horne will be our main climbers.”

Archibald hit the deck approaching the first QoM (Queen of the Mountains) but Joanna Rowsell hung back to help her Pearl Izumi sprinter back into the pack, once she’d been seen by the race doctor. Armitstead looked to control the pace heading towards the QoM with Sharon Laws (last years QoM winner). Susanna Zorzi of Lotto Soudal unfortunately got a flat at the bottom of the climb.
6 pojnts went to Melissa Hoskins of Orica with Anouska Koster hot on her heels for the 5 points.

Lizzie Armitstead, “My form is good, I had a mini season break in May came back with two wins, I won the Tour of Qatar, I’ll take that confidence into the sprints but a much more lumpy race would really suit me.”

Orica AIS rider Emma Johansson, “ I’ve just come out of a tour in Spain that was really successful for me, I came away with 3 wins, I don’t feel like there is any pressure on me, I’m just gonna enjoy every day.”

The first sprint points were contested by a group of four riders but Coryn Rivera (UHC) won the sprint gaining the first 3 points of the tour followed by Marta Tagliaferro (2 points) and Elinor Barker (1 point).

Hannah Barnes UHC, “ I’m mostly looking at stage wins this Tour, last year was good with two top fours, Coryn and I are on form so the team is hoping to have a really good week.”

USA’s Heather Fischer took a nasty fall in the race for the second sprint, Tagliaferro took maximum points followed by Barker and Rivera.

Laura Trott, Matrix Fitness, “It went well at the Tour Series and the Milk Race for me, these stages are a bit longer than an hour race, two of the stages are 140km which isn’t what we train for, as long as I can get to the finish I think I can do ok.”

A five rider breakaway was established as the second QoM loomed ahead, the group consisted of the previous sprint contest riders, they were joined by Katie Archibald, and Coryn Rivera’s UHC team mate Katie Hall who was sitting on the back wheel waiting to pounce. The peloton chase was being led by Wiggle Honda with a 3 minute gap to the leaders at one point. Another gap developed as Katie Archibald struggled with the climb and was distanced from her breakaway companions. The UHC riders took the top two points available as the QoM summit (Katie Hall 6pts and Coryn Rivera 5pts). Archibald was last over the line for the breakaway taking 2 points as she started to slip slowly backwards, eventually when the peloton arrived at the QoM’s Sharon Laws mopped up the remaining point uncontested.

Giorgia Bronzini, Wiggle Honda, “For me and my team this race is a big goal, we are here with good riders and we are prepared for every solution that can be in the race.”

The leading group was down to four riders with 10km’s to go. Orica snd Wiggle had raised the pace on the front of the peloton and the lead groups advantage of 2 minutes 45 was eroded to 55 seconds.

Lisa Brennauer of Velcro SRAM“I think there are more possibilities for a sprinter than just the bunch sprint this tour, I hope it’s going to be exciting and not predictable as to who’s going to win.”

With 5km’s to go the lead group were dangling like a carrot in front of the hungry peloton.

With 2km to go the race became exposed to the crosswinds of the coast with those hiding in the peloton at an advantage.

Aviva Women's Tour 2015 | Stage OneUnder the Flame rouge and the breakaway was hanging in by a thread. They were quickly absorbed into the peloton. The sprinters came to the front and immediately Armitstead, Frapporti, Brennauer and Johansson showed their form. Crossing the line first was Lizzie Armitstead with Lisa Brennauer 2nd, and Emma Johansson 3rd.

The days spills didn’t end there, moments after the win Lizzie appeared to swerve to her left and in doing so hit a number of the press photographers, CyclingShorts.cc Chris Maher was one of them, they fell like a pack of cards. The photographers were in their correct position along with race organisers. Currently nothing is known about why Lizzie lost control of her bike but she went down very hard. She was rushed to hospital with a suspected broken femur, she was released later luckily with nothing more serious than bruises. Lizzie thanked everyone for their concern and also thanked the NHS staff who treated her.

Armitstead has a 4 second lead after stage one with a time of 2h39’43”. We wish Lizzie well and hope she’s able to defend her jersey tomorrow.

Stage One | Bury St Edmonds to Alderburgh

Stage1Results

 

U23 – Coryn Rivera

Best British – Lizzie Armitstead

Points – Lizzie Armitstead

Queen of the Mountains – Katie Hall

Team – UnitedHealthcare Professional Cycling

 

Useful Links…

Twitter www.twitter.com/thewomenstour    Event Hashtag #AvivaWT2015

Facebook www.facebook.com/thewomenstour

Instagram www.instagram.com/thetourcycling

YouTube www.youtube.com/thetourcycling

Aviva Women’s Tour Women’s Tour

 

Thursday 18th June 2015 | Stage Two | Braintree to Clacton

AvivaWT_Stage2_Map-1

Words by Anna, Images by Chris Maher

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