V-SERIES Women's Tour: TIBCO-SVB's Leah Dixon takes the overall title

Cathalijne Hoolwerf (NXTG Racing) won the third and final stage of the SKODA V-SERIES Women’s Tour held at the virtual Canary Wharf, London on Friday. She sprinted to the win ahead of TIBCO-SVB teammates Lauren Stephens and Kristen Faulkner.

"I really enjoyed today. I knew I had to just push through. It was definitely hard," Hoolwerf said. "I'm super happy to be part of this team. We get great support and focus on development and get a lot of chances."

TIBCO-SVB finished the three days of racing with Leah Dixon winning the overall title and stage 2. 

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"It’s amazing I’m so pleased to be able to finish it off, it did get super stressful for a while tonight though," Dixon said. "This is my first year as a procyclist so I’m just super excited to get back to racing. I’ve just embraced this lockdown period to work on my weaknesses and get lots of training in.  The virtual racing has been a great way to keep that intensity and to also bond with my teammates."

The V-SERIES Women's Tour concluded with a 35km circuit race held on a one-kilometre loop through the business district of Canary Wharf, London.

Boels Dolmans sprinted off the start line and led the field through the first two corners of the four-corner flat course. It was a test of power through each corner,  5-6w/kg, as riders tried to stay near the front to avoid splits in the field.

Early pace-setters like Tayler Wiles (Trek-Segafredo) and Mieke Kröger (Hitec), Dani Christmas (Lotto Soudal), Kristen Faulkner (TIBCO-SVB) and Jip van den Bos (Boels Dolmans) rotated on and off the front of the long line of riders.

At just six kilometres into the race, the field had already thinned down to some 25 riders. Overall leader and stage 2 winner Leah Dixon (TIBCO-SVB) had no trouble staying near the front of the criterium. Notably, TIBCO-SVB and CAMS Tifosi still had three riders each in the lead group contesting the final laps of the race.

Only 10 riders formed the lead group in the last three kilometres, but there were also several lapped rider mixed into that field.

On the bell lap, Stephens hit the front with Faulkner and Emma Norsgard Jørgensen (Bigla Katusha), but it was Cathalijne Hoolwerf (NXTG Racing) jumped early and took the victory.

The V-SERIES Women’s Tour was held on the RGT Cycling virtual platform in support of Breast Cancer Now and Mind. 

V-SERIES Women's Tour stage 3 - replay