Joanna Rowsell Shand
Aviva Women's Tour is a great event and I'm excited to be taking part
Second edition of five-day British race starts on Wednesday
Last Updated: 13/06/15 4:20pm
The second edition of the Aviva Women’s Tour starts on Wednesday and I’m really excited to be taking part in what is already one of the biggest races in women’s cycling.
I missed out last year due to illness and instead had to watch from home and marvel at the incredible crowds that turned up – often in bad weather – to support the event.
I think its success took everybody by surprise, but especially the riders. Most women’s races are watched by crowds amounting to a few men and their dogs, so even star names like Marianne Vos were blown away by it.
It was a huge step forward, not just for women’s cycling in Britain, but also internationally, and it made me hugely proud to be British.
With a bit of luck, the upcoming edition will be even bigger and better, and I’m really looking forward to it after being selected for my Pearl Izumi Sports Tours International team’s line-up.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to be a difficult five days for me. I’m a track rider and this will be the first time I have ever raced 130km-per-day stage races. But I’m hoping I will get to the end and my intention is to try to get into a couple of breakaways along the way and leave some sort of stamp on the race.
I’m also hoping that Lizzie Armitstead takes overall victory. She had a hard time of it at last year’s race with illness but she is back this year and is in great form, so I definitely think she can do it.
There are a few other British riders who also have the potential to give the home crowds something to cheer. Lucy Garner and Hannah Barnes are both exciting, up-and-coming sprinters who could be challenging for wins in the sprint finishes.
In my team we have Dame Sarah Storey, who is in incredible form at the moment, as well as my GB team pursuit team-mates Katie Archibald, who has a fast finish, and Ciara Horne, who will be looking forward to the Queen of the Mountains competition.
It’s just great that we all have such a big and high-profile stage on which to showcase our abilities.
Once the race is over, my attention will turn to getting married next month, which I’m obviously extremely excited about, and then the 2015/16 track cycling season, which starts in earnest with European championships in Switzerland in October.
During the summer, myself and the other girls in the Great Britain endurance squad will be racing on the road with a view to building fitness for the autumn, which is when we need to start peaking.
Talking of peaking, there’s no question Sir Bradley Wiggins was at his very best for his UCI Hour Record-breaking ride on Sunday.
That was a masterclass and a truly inspiring ride. Unfortunately, the conditions inside the velodrome weren’t quite right and the high air pressure thwarted his chances of reaching his target distance of 55.250km, but 54.526km was still an incredible effort.
I would love to see him have another go at it in better conditions, but he is focusing on riding the team pursuit at the Olympics in Rio next year so it doesn’t look likely.
It’s going to be a big boost for all of us in the British team to have Bradley back around the place full time. He is the type of leader we have possibly missed since the retirements of Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton, so everyone is excited about having him in the fold again.
