The new ŠKODA V-Women’s Tour gets underway tonight (19:00 BST, Wednesday 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 ŠKODA 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
Commenting on the ŠKODA 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. ŠKODA stepping in, to be headline sponsor for the race in a virtual format, highlights the strength of their support for women’s cycling. I’m pleased to be part of this unique event and looking forward to testing myself again in a competition.”
Making their Women’s Tour debut are American squad Rally Cycling. Leigh Ann Ganzar from the team said:
“I’m excited to see the WorldTour teams logging on for the race, the level of competition is going to be really high. This is our first time competing on the RGT Cycling platform so there will be a steep learning curve with the new race dynamics.
“Virtual racing gives a good approximation of what the last bit of a real-world race feels like. The intensity is a good way to stoke the fire while we prepare for regular racing to resume.”
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.”
“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.”
The ŠKODA V-Women’s Tour will also be broadcast via the CyclingNews, British Cycling and ŠKODA WeLoveCycling YouTube channels.
The ŠKODA V-Women’s Tour is being made possible thanks to the support of ŠKODA, California Raisins, Lucozade Sports, RGT Cycling and Scimitar.
Following each stage of the ŠKODA 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.
–ENDS–
About the Women’s Tour
Created by SweetSpot Group in 2014, the Women’s Tour is the UK’s first international stage race for women, bringing the world’s top riders to compete in Great Britain as a part of the UCI Women’s WorldTour.
The race, which has been won by the likes of Marianne Vos (2014), Lizzie Deignan (2016, 2019) and Coryn Rivera (2018), attracts an annual roadside audience of 300,000, as well as over three million fans through linear and online platforms.
Follow the Women’s Tour on Twitter (#WomensTour), Facebook, and Instagram or via the event’s official website at womenstour.co.uk.
For further media information pleasecontact: Peter Hodges (peterh@thetour.co.uk) or 07970 526 519
About RGT Cycling
RGT Cycling is a virtual reality cycling simulator that is available for PC, Mac and Apple TV. It is used in conjunction with iOS and Android Apps and supported training hardware. Users from around the world are able to Go Beyond and connect, ride, race and train together in a virtual reality that recreates the captivating culture of real-world cycling. For more visit www.rgtcycling.com
About ŠKODA AUTO
ŠKODA AUTO is this year celebrating 125 years since the company was founded during the pioneering era of the automobile in 1895, making it one of the longest-established car manufacturers in the world.
They currently offer its customers nine passenger-car series: the CITIGO, FABIA, RAPID, SCALA, OCTAVIA and SUPERB, as well as the KAMIQ, KAROQ and KODIAQ.
They delivered 1.24 million vehicles to customers around the world in 2019.
ŠKODA AUTO has belonged to Volkswagen Group since 1991. The Volkswagen Group is one of the most successful vehicle manufacturers in the world. In association with the Group, ŠKODA AUTO independently develops and manufactures vehicles, as well as components such as engines and transmissions.
ŠKODA AUTO operates at three locations in the Czech Republic; manufactures in China, Russia, Slovakia and India mainly through Group partnerships, as well as in Ukraine and Kazakhstan with local partners.
They employ approximately 42,000 people globally and is active in more than 100 markets.
ŠKODA AUTO is pressing ahead with the transformation from a traditional car manufacturer to the ‘Simply Clever company for the best mobility solutions’ as part of the ŠKODA 2025 Strategy.
About Breast Cancer Now
- Breast Cancer Now is the UK’s first comprehensive breast cancer charity, combining world-class research and life-changing care to build a complete view of breast cancer and make faster progress for everyone affected.
- Steered by research and powered by care, Breast Cancer Now’s ambition is that, by 2050, everyone who develops breast cancer will live and be supported to live well.
- Breast Cancer Now funds around a third of all breast cancer research in the UK. By working with almost 340 of the brightest minds in breast cancer research, the charity is helping discover how to prevent more cases, save more lives and enable more women to live well with the disease.
- The charity’s award-winning information and services are there to make sure anyone diagnosed with breast cancer can get the support they need to live well with impacts of the disease. Anyone looking for support or information can call Breast Cancer Now’s free Helpline on 0808 800 6000.
- Breast cancer is the UK’s most common cancer, with around 55,000 women and 370 men being diagnosed each year. An estimated 600,000 people in the UK are alive after a diagnosis of breast cancer, and one in seven women will develop the disease in their lifetime.
- Despite decades of progress in research and care, around 11,500 women and 80 men still die from the disease every year in the UK, with hundreds of thousands more living with the devastating, long-term physical and emotional impacts of the disease.
- Breast Cancer Now, the research and care charity, launched in October 2019, created by the merger of specialist support and information charity Breast Cancer Care and leading research charity Breast Cancer Now.
- For more information on Breast Cancer Now’s work, visit breastcancernow.org or follow us on Twitter or on Facebook.
Peter Hodges
PR & Marketing Director, SweetSpot Group
+44 (0)1932 831 485
+44 (0)7970 526 519