Hannah Barnes wins British women's road race

Hannah Barnes became the British women’s road race champion on Sunday, taking victory in a sprint from a 13-rider group that held off the peloton on the 100.5km Stockton course.

It was her sister, Alice Barnes (Drops) who was her closest challenger in the push for the line, with the younger sibling taking second place – and first in the U23 category – as she did 12 months ago. Lucy Garner of Wiggle-High5 was third, a couple of bike lengths back, completing a podium with an average age of just over 21.

For Hannah Barnes, the title represents a first victory since making her return from a long injury lay-off after after breaking her ankle in August last year. The 23-year-old missed the chance to support Armitstead’s World Championships-winning ride in Richmond and her competitive start to life at new team Canyon-SRAM – having previously been with UnitedHealthcare – was delayed until mid-April.

"I'm really pleased to have the race win and how I could finish it off.It's quite a fine line between being patient and making sure you go with the right moves," said Barnes. "Thankfully it was a pretty small group that we got away so it was easiest to mark and go with the moves. Coming into the circuits it was pretty active and I had to make sure I was with everyone that went.

"I didn't expect Alice to be so close to me really, I haven't raced with Alice in a long time so it was really nice to have her there. For her to have the under-23 jersey as well, we have a very happy mum and dad."

Barnes attacked from the large leading group as the race hung in the balance with the peloton advancing on the second-to-last lap of the technical 6.7km finish circuit in Stockton town centre. She didn’t burn all her matches, however, and had enough left in the tank to take victory by a considerable margin over most of the other members of the group.

Barnes got herself into the race-winning move when a group of 12 broke free of the bunch and set off in pursuit of lone leader Sarah Storey, who had gone clear early on in the race.

They made the bridge with two laps remaining of the main 13.4km loop and the peloton was largely unable to eat into their advantage of just over a minute.

They made it onto the finishing circuit for the first of three laps with a lead of just under a minute and things became tense as the peloton continued to advance. The gap was down to 30 seconds heading into the final lap, and Barnes tested her rivals with an attack, soon followed by a counter from Nikki Harris.

The group came into the home straight with enough of an advantage, and it was Alice Barnes who came to the front on the finishing straight, only to see her sister come round with a powerful sprint.

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