The 2025 Lloyds Tour of Britain Women gets underway on Thursday 5th June with a record field of 114 riders and five current national road race champions on the provisional start list. Among them is double Olympic medallist Kristen Faulkner, who arrives in the UK fresh from retaining her American title, and will wear the Stars and Stripes jersey for EF Education-Oatly throughout the four-stage race.
The full provisional start list can be found here.
Also in national colours will be S’Annara Grove of CJ O’Shea Racing, the South African champion, and Mauritius’ Kimberley Le Court Pienaar, who continues her strong season with AG Insurance-Soudal. Finland’s Anniina Ahtosalo, racing for Uno-X Mobility, and Polish champion Dominika Włodarczyk of UAE Team ADQ complete the list of reigning national champions lining up in Dalby Forest.
Broadcast coverage has received a major boost, with the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women featured as part of the BBC’s Summer of Sport. All four stages will be shown live on BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and app, with additional streaming on Discovery+ and the event’s YouTube channel.
This year’s race marks the final appearance in the event for Lizzie Deignan, with the Yorkshire-born rider racing on home roads in the colours of Lidl-Trek. She is one of five former stage winners confirmed, alongside teammate Elisa Balsamo, Australian pair Sarah Roy of EF Education-Oatly and Ruby Roseman-Gannon of Liv AlUla Jayco, and SD Worx-Protime’s Lorena Wiebes.
Photo Credit: Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.comWiebes arrives with 14 wins on British roads since 2019 and remains unbeaten on UK soil this season. Her most recent ToBW win came in Warrington during last year’s Tour of Britain Women. Now ranked second in the UCI Women’s WorldTour standings, Wiebes is expected to target sprint finishes again as she chases the top spot. She is one of six top-20 ranked riders in the field, joined by Balsamo, Le Court Pienaar, Marta Lach of SD Worx-Protime, Karlijn Swinkels of UAE Team ADQ, and Canyon SRAM sprinter Chiara Consonni.
Deignan’s Lidl-Trek teammate Anna Henderson returns after finishing second overall last year, and remains one of the race’s most versatile threats. Letizia Paternoster is another to watch, after narrowly missing out on a stage win in 2024 before finishing fifth on GC. Liv AlUla Jayco have built around her and Roseman-Gannon as key options for both reduced bunch sprints and flatter finishes.
British squads will also be well represented. Handsling Alba Development RT will take encouragement from strong spring form, including a Lincoln Grand Prix win for Lauren Dickson and Kate Richardson’s GC victory at the Tour de Feminin in Czechia. Robyn Clay of DAS-Hutchinson also picked up her first UCI win at that race, and is set for her debut at this level. April Tacey of the Great Britain national team returns after a win at Omloop der Kempen.
Photo Credit: GettyRising British talent will be in the spotlight too. Cat Ferguson, now riding for Movistar, lines up for her first Tour of Britain Women after an impressive spring that saw her win the Navarra Women’s Elite Classic. Still only 19, Ferguson claimed both junior world titles in 2024 and has quickly adapted to elite racing. Close behind her is Imogen Wolff of Team Visma | Lease a Bike, also 19, who won a stage and the youth classification at Vuelta a Extremadura before stepping into the Spring Classics. The pair finished first and second in last summer’s British junior road race championships and will now make their debuts at home in the WorldTour.
The 2025 route opens in the North York Moors with a lumpy day from Dalby Forest to Redcar, followed by a second stage ending with a sharp uphill drag in Saltburn-by-the-Sea. The final two stages take the race north of the border, with a rolling circuit around Kelso in the Borders before the finale in Glasgow on Sunday 8th June.
Main photo credit: USACycling
