News: Virtual Women’s Tour

18 teams and more than 50 of the world’s top riders to race a virtual Women’s Tour on the RGT platform starting on Wednesday and shown on BBC as well as online

News: Virtual Women’s Tour
The new ŠKODA V-Women’s Tour gets underway on Wednesday night (19:00 BST, 17 June) live on the BBC Sport website, app and BBC iPlayer as well as the Women’s Tour website, Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Across three evenings 18 teams and more than 50 of the world’s top riders will face three stages of racing on the RGT Cycling platform, tackling two classic stage routes from Women’s Tour history around Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk (Wednesday) and the hill top finish of Burton Dassett in Warwickshire (Thursday 18 June) before a final 35-lap circuit race around Canary Wharf on Friday (19 June) evening.

The 18 confirmed teams for the V-Women’s Tour are: Biehler Krush Pro Cycling; Bigla Katusha; Bizkaia Durango; Boels Dolmans Cycling Team; CAMS Tifosi; Cogeas Mettler Look Pro Cycling; Drops; FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope; Great Britain; Hitec Products; Lotto Soudal Ladies; NXTG Racing; Rally Cycling; ŠKODA DSI Cycling Academy; Storey Racing; Team Breeze; Team TIBCO SVB; and Trek-Segafredo.

Among the riders confirmed to take part are:
· Lucy van der Haar (Hitec Products-Birk Sport) – double Junior World Champion and winner of the Best British Rider jersey in the 2014 Women’s Tour
· Dame Sarah Storey (Storey Racing)
· Katie Hall (Boels Dolmans) – winner of the Queen of the Mountains jersey in the 2016 Women’s Tour
· Lizzy Banks (Bigla Katusha) – top 10 finisher in the 2019 Women’s Tour
· Ruth Winder (Trek-Segafredo) – current US national road race champion

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Commenting on the V-Women’s Tour, Dame Sarah Storey, who raced in the real world event in 2016 said, “With the news of the Women’s Tour being postponed until 2021, cycling needed something a little different, which enabled riders to race and teams to give visibility to their sponsors. I’m pleased to be part of this unique event and looking forward to testing myself again in a competition.”

Trek-Segafredo – the defending Women’s Tour champions following their victory on the road with Lizzie Deignan in June 2019 – will be one of two UCI Women’s WorldTour teams racing, along with FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope, and their team manager Ina Teutenberg is looking forward to the action. “Having the opportunity to participate in the Virtual Women’s Tour will be a nice change to the monotony the riders are experiencing at home these days with no racing in the immediate future. The stages have something for everybody, and we tried to assemble a team that can compete well in all of them,” said Teutenberg.

“We’re still in the early stages of the preparation for the re-start of the season, but this event will give the riders some welcomed motivation. We want to be competitive in every single stage.”

Following each stage of the V-Women’s Tour, members of the public also have the chance to ride the three routes with a suggested donation of £5 to raise money for Breast Cancer Now and Mind with a choice of Fan Races, Group Rides and Open Roads on RGT Cycling. Mind are the charity partner of Volkswagen Group UK (of which ŠKODA is a part), while Breast Cancer Now’s partnership with the Women’s Tour dates back to 2017 and has seen riders race in the past three editions of the Women’s Tour carrying pink ribbons bearing messages from those affected by breast cancer.