Guarnier sets seal on UCI Women's WorldTour outright triumph in Madrid

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Megan Guarnier (Boels-Dolmans) has become the first ever winner of the women's WorldTour after coming safely through the final round of the series, the Madrid Challenge by la Vuelta on Sunday.

The US rider completed the series with 946 points, a massive advantage over second-placed Leah Kirchman (Team Liv-Plantur) who had 604 points, whilst teammate Lizzie Armitstead (Boels-Dolmans) finished third with 545 points. Boels Dolmans also won the teams series.

After taking over in the lead in the Tour of California from Armitstead, winning the overall Giro Rosa, and coming fifth in the penultimate round, the GP de Plouay-Bretagne, Guarnier, was already the mathematical winner. But she completed the final leg of the series in Madrid in 46th place after making a searing attack 35 kilometres from the line.

Even though the overall win was in her grasp, Guarnier said "every race we come to try to win, so even though we knew I would win the overall, it was still a race that we came into that we wanted to race aggressively and go for the podium. But it wasn't our best finish."

As for whether the WorldTour had been an objective from the start, Guarnier said, "we have a very strong team, you can see that from our win in the teams classification, and it just so happens that the jersey ended on my back. But it was really a team effort."

As for the race itself, Guarnier said she had gone up the road early on because "my strength on a course like this is a long attack or breakaway and I wanted to make it hard for the other teams and that's why I went away. I got caught by a small group, but it didn't really work out, and we were then caught by the peloton." S

he was unaffected, she said, by the big crash some four kilometres from the line, "I heard it happen, but didn't see it, I was getting together with my teammates then and we could continue to do our job."

Although the World Championships course in Doha is not favourable to her, it is the next - and final - stop for Guarnier this year.

She said she would try "to build back up for that, after a bit of recovery time. I'll go there and race aggressively. it's not really the best course for me, [but] I hope to go there and represent my country and do the best I can."

UCI Women's WorldTour Final Standings