Hannah Barnes hoping history will repeat itself at season-opening Tour Femenino de San Luis

Up-and-coming British sprinter Hannah Barnes will start her second season as a professional at the Tour Femenino de San Luis in Argentina next week hoping to repeat her stage victory at last year’s race.

The 21-year-old from Towcester in Northamptonshire enjoyed a dream professional debut 12 months ago by winning the first stage of the 2014 edition in Villa Mercedes just weeks after signing for American team UnitedHealthcare.

It remains her only victory in the senior ranks, but with the six-day race returning to Villa Mercedes on Monday for the finish of this year's second stage, she is optimistic that history can repeat itself.

“It’s a good race to start the year off with and hopefully I can be as successful as I was last year,” Barnes told skysports.com. “That was a dream win last year. It was a big relief. I had just joined a new team and you want to show them that they have signed a good rider, so it was nice to pay their faith back so early.

Confidence boost

“It is good to see the same stage back again this year and I will definitely be targeting it again. It is a flat stage and I am the team’s sprinter, so hopefully I can repeat what I did last year. It would be such a nice confidence boost at the start of the year.”

Despite being her only win, Barnes’ performance in Argentina was eclipsed as her highlight of 2014 by the inaugural Women’s Tour of Britain in May, where she finished third on the opening stage in Northampton, just up the A43 from where she lives.

Up against a world-class field, she was beaten only by Emma Johansson and Marianne Vos but got the better of the former world champion Giorgia Bronzini and the current queen of British road racing, Lizzie Armitstead.

An eight-place finish overall helped convince UnitedHealthcare to offer her a contract extension and she is now making the 2015 edition a major target in her season.

Tour target

“The Women’s Tour of Britain will be a big race for me this year,” Barnes added. “It was a great experience for me last year and, being a British rider racing in America, I will really look forward to coming home for it.

“Originally, my team weren’t going to go over for it last year because it was just too much money to fly everyone over from America, but I managed to persuade them and they were quite surprised by how big the race was, and I think we were one of the first teams to sign up for the 2015 race.”

Another key objective for Barnes in 2015 will be improving her chances of riding for Great Britain in the Olympic road race in Rio de Janeiro next year, where Armitstead is expected to be the team's leader.

“It is a big dream for me to make it on to the team and I will do everything I can to be there and help Lizzie,” she added. “I was in the team supporting her at the Commonwealth Games and the world championships and it’s just great to be part of it.”

The Tour Femenino de San Luis takes place from January 11-16.