Tour of Britain Women: Ally Wollaston snatches overall title from Cat Ferguson with bonus seconds masterclass on stage 4

Ally Wollaston (FDJ-Suez) won the Tour of Britain Women, overcoming a three-second deficit to Cat Ferguson (Movistar) on the final stage to take the GC while Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) won the final stage in Glasgow.

Winning all three intermediate sprints on the Glasgow circuit, Wollaston drew level with Ferguson, and she picked up another four bonus seconds by finishing third behind Wiebes and Charlotte Kool (Picnic-PostNL) to win the race overall by those four seconds.

"I’m a little bit overwhelmed, sorry. I’m so happy, first of all, a massive thank you to my teammates, I couldn’t have done it without them. This means the world to me, it’s my first WorldTour victory in GC," said Wollaston on the podium on Glasgow Green.

"I knew I needed to get every second I could in the bonus sprints, and unfortunately, Cat was right in my wheel every time! So it came down to the last sprint, and there was a moment of doubt halfway through that last lap where I thought ‘I just cannot do this today’, and my teammates really helped me pull it together and pulled me to the front for the final."

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How it unfolded

The final stage was held on an 8.4km city-centre circuit in Glasgow. With the start of the first lap neutralised, ten laps came out to a total of 82.2km of racing, with intermediate sprints offering time bonuses after the fourth, sixth, and eighth lap.

Kool suffered a mechanical on lap 2 but quickly returned to the peloton. On lap 3, Anna Morris (Great Britain) launched a solo attack that lasted for a few kilometres before she was caught again.

At the end of lap 4, Ferguson was first through the last corner with 170 metres to go and looked like the winner of the first intermediate sprint, but Wollaston squeezed past on the final metres to take three bonus seconds ahead of two for Ferguson, making up one second of her three-second deficit.

Wollaston beat Ferguson to the line in the second intermediate sprint, too, and now sat only one second behind the green jersey. Ferguson continued the ‘curse of the leader’s jersey’ – after bad luck for Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) on stages 2 and 3, Ferguson had a mechanical halfway through lap 5.

The 19-year-old Yorkshirewoman never panicked, did an excellent bike change and soon rejoined the back of the peloton. Her teammates brought her back to the front, and Ferguson was second in the last intermediate sprint, again behind Wollaston who now had the same time as the green jersey, setting up an exciting sprint finish.

Morris attacked again on lap 9 and was ten seconds ahead as the bell rang for the final lap, but she was reeled in with just over 5km to go. On the turn into Glasgow Green, Marta Lach (SD Worx-Protime) took the front with Wiebes in her wheel, and the European champion launched her sprint at the 300-metre mark, going first through the final corner before accelerating again to win by several bike lengths to Kool.

Behind Wiebes and Kool, Wollaston was piloted into third position by her teammate Célia Gery and kept this to the line, taking the last bonus seconds to win the overall classification. FDJ-Suez also won the team classification while Ferguson took the white U23 jersey and the red points jersey. Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ) won the blue QOM jersey, and Grace Lister (Hess) was the best-placed local Continental rider in 15th place.

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