It was a grey, wet day in Wales, but the Women’s Tour lit up the countryside with attacks going from kilometer zero. A day for the GC contenders, Becky Storrie again moved up on GC with the support of her teammates.
© Harry Paine
“The whole team impressed again,” said Dani Christmas, DS. “After all making it over the big climbs of the day we found ourselves in a tricky situation but the girls worked really well to place Becky back in the front group.
“We can take a lot of learning from today,” continued Christmas, “And I’m really happy with how the girls rode on this incredibly tough stage.”
Stage 4 certainly lived up to its billing as the hardest stage in the Women’s Tour history. The conditions, the parcours and the aggressive racing made for an exciting but tough race for all.
© Harry Paine
When the final climb split the peloton, Storrie, Shrosbree, Morrow and Stuart dug deep to get themselves back onto the main group. With 10 leaders still up the road and 20km remaining, Team DSM got onto the front to try to close the gap, forcing another split in the main bunch. With all our riders on the wrong side of the split, the team dug deep to help Storrie get back onto the bunch and stay in contention in the race and the GC.
With about 14km to go Storrie made it back onto a heavily whittled down main peloton. With more attacks coming from the breakaway group, the chasers were unable to bridge the gap. Storrie came over the line in the main bunch 1.16 behind winner, Grace Brown from FDJ. She moves up to 31st on GC.
Stage 4 Results:
36th Becky Storrie
43rd Beth Morrow
50th Sammie Stuart
61st Danni Shrosbree
67th Katie Scott