Tour of Britain Women 2024

Updated: 4 June 2024

Tour of Britain Women 2024 overview

The Tour of Britain Women is the UK’s most prestigious stage race and has historically been one of the leading, multi-day events on the women’s racing calendar. With its history as the Women’s Tour, the race was once a big objective for many of the sport’s most elite riders and therefore drew competition from all over the globe.

Unfortunately, the race was cancelled in 2023 as a result of financial difficulties and these concerns remained heading into 2024. Race organisers Sweetspot went into liquidation in January and British Cycling stepped in to save the event, which has now been renamed as the Tour of Britain Women and has been reduced to only four stages for the first time.

With that in mind, only four UCI Women’s WorldTeams are in line to be at the start, with SD Worx-Protime, Human Powered Health, dsm-firmenich PostNL and Liv AlUla Jayco representing cycling’s top tier. Aside from those four, the start list is made up of mostly UCI Continental teams, with Great Britain also fielding a national side to round out the participants. With their trade teams not riding, Lizzie Deignan and Anna Henderson are using the opportunity to ride for Great Britain.

The big international stars, meanwhile, will be Lotte Kopecky, Lorena Wiebes (both SD Worx-Protime) and Charlotte Kool (dsm-firmenich PostNL). Wiebes and Kool will no doubt go head to head in the sprint finish that could await on stage 3, whilst the other three stages all look open to attacking racing that could decide the general classification.

Read more: Tour of Britain Women route revealed, with curtailed 2024 edition set to expand in coming years

Tour of Britain Women 2024 key information

When is the Tour of Britain Women 2024? The race will begin on Thursday 6 June and end three days later on Sunday 9 June.

Where does the Tour of Britain Women take place? As the name now suggests, the Tour of Britain Women takes place across the British Isles, but is usually reserved for England and Wales. This year’s race will begin in Wales and end in Greater Manchester.

Who won the Tour of Britain Women in 2023? Nobody won last year’s race, as it did not take place due to financial difficulties. Two years ago, however, Elisa Longo Borghini won the race for the first time in her career.

When did the Tour of Britain Women start? The Women’s Tour started in 2014, with Great Britain still enjoying the high from the 2012 London Olympics. Ten years later, the race will return as the Tour of Britain Women, bringing the event in line with the men’s race.

Who won the first Tour of Britain Women? The first edition of the Women’s Tour, as it was known, was won by Marianne Vos.

Who has the most wins at the Tour of Britain Women? Only one winner of the Tour of Britain Women has won the race more than once, and rather fittingly for Britain’s flagship stage race, that rider is Lizzie Deignan. The Lidl-Trek rider won the race in 2016 and 2019.

Tour of Britain Women 2024 route

This year’s Tour of Britain Women route is a varied affair, despite being reduced to just four stages. The penultimate day looks set to end in a bunch sprint, but elsewhere, the route is fairly unpredictable. The first stage between Welshpool and Llandudno has the most climbing of any day, with an elevation gain of 2,276m, and has already been identified as the toughest stage by race director Rod Ellingworth.

“Stage 1 is going to be the most challenging stage for sure, [followed by] stage 4,” he surmised when the route was announced. “I think the GC will come down to the final stage. Weather will play a huge part – if it’s okay weather on stage 1, I think you’ll have a different race come stage 4 – but I think it’s pretty open.”

Stage 2 remains in Wales and takes in a series of testing climbs between the Clwydian Range and the Dee Valley, with the final category 1 climb topping out with a little over 25km to descend into the finish in Wrexham. Two days later, the race will come to its conclusion in Leigh and may well come down to a small bunch sprint, but the Ramsbottom Rake may have a thing or two to say in the finale.

The Rake is a little under a kilometre in length but averages 9.9% and may well provide the spark for one final string of attacks.

Teams of the Tour of Britain Women 2024

As a result of the uncertainty over its future and the curtailed length of the 2024 Tour of Britain, this year’s race will not welcome the same star-studded start list as usual. Rather, only four UCI WorldTeams will take to the start, with Great Britain fielding a team that includes many star riders whose teams are not participating, including Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek) and Anna Henderson (Visma-Lease a Bike).

UCI WorldTour

• dsm-firmenich PostNL
• Human Powered Health
• Liv AlUla Jayco
• SD Worx-Protime

UCI Continental

• Alba Development Road Team
• Cofidis
• DAS-Hutchinson-Brother-UK
• Doltcini O’Shea
• Hess Cycling Team
• Lifeplus Wahoo
• Pro-Noctis-200° Coffee - Hargreaves Contracting
• St Michel-Mavic-Auber93
• Torelli
• VolkerWessels Women’s Pro Cycling Team

National

• Great Britain

Tour of Britain Women history

Several of the biggest names in the Women’s WorldTour have won this race over the course of its short history, including Marianne Vos, a three-time world champion, Lisa Brennauer, a former world time trial champion, and Lizzie Deignan, a winner of the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix Femmes and the World Championships road race.

The race first launched in 2014 as a five-day event, but in 2019 it was boosted up to a six-day stage race, adding an extra day after being well received by both riders and fans alike. The first two editions of the Women’s Tour were based in the south east of the UK, with flat and hilly stages around Northampton, Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead. Since 2016 and its inclusion on the Women’s WorldTour, the race has started to explore more areas of the UK, with a number of stages being held in the Midlands and Wales.

The nature of each stage race has changed slightly between each edition, with some editions favouring the all-rounders and puncheurs, and others the sprinters. The 2018 route was one for the sprinters, with four flat stages around the south-east and Midlands before a final flat stage into Colwyn Bay in Wales. That edition was won by the American sprinter, Coryn Rivera, who took a stage win on her way to an impressive overall victory.

The 2019 edition was a little hillier and therefore opened the door to the all-rounders like Lizzie Deignan, who took a stage win and two podium places on her way to overall victory. Despite a hillier route, the gap between first and second overall was the tightest we’ve ever seen in the race, with just two seconds separating Deignan and Kasia Niewiadoma.

The race embarked on its most ambitious route yet in 2021, with a hilly stage around Walsall and an individual time trial in Atherstone deciding the GC and crowning Demi Vollering the champion. For the first time in the race’s history, the organisers included a summit finish a year later, with stage 5 finishing atop Black Mountain in southeast Wales. On a route that looked tailor-made for the climbers and general classification specialists, Elisa Longo Borghini won on Black Mountain and claimed the general classification in the process.

The race did not go ahead in 2023, with organisers Sweetspot suffering a series of financial difficulties which placed the future of the Tour of Britain at risk. These concerns continued into 2024 before British Cycling took the race under its wing and organised a four-day route in June. It will be the shortest edition in history, but the governing body hopes that this will be the start of a sustainable future for the race, with Lloyds Bank coming on board as a title sponsor. For the first time, the race will not be known as the Women’s Tour, but will go forth as the Tour of Britain Women.

Tour of Britain Women past winners

• 2022 Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) Trek-Segafredo
• 2019 Lizzie Deignan (GBR) Trek-Segafredo
• 2018 Coryn Labecki (USA) Sunweb
• 2017 Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) WM3 Pro Cycling
• 2016 Lizzie Deignan (GBR) Boels-Dolmans
• 2015 Lisa Brennauer (Ger) Velocio-SRAM
• 2014 Marianne Vos (Ned) Rabo Liv

Major Races

See All

Date	Event	Class
29 Jun - 21 Jul	Tour de France	2.UWT
12 Aug - 18 Aug	Tour de France Femmes	2.WWT
2 Jun - 9 Jun	Critérium du Dauphiné	2.UWT
6 Jun - 9 Jun	Tour of Britain Women	2.WWT
9 Jun - 16 Jun	Tour de Suisse	2.UWT

Provided by FirstCycling