To illustrate my thoughts on the positive development I have calculated the history of the Women's Tour GC vs. "on the road" time, i.e. if there were no time bonuses in the race, to show how this year's race is clearly forward progress from a GC point of view. I'm not saying that the presence of time bonuses is a bad thing - and certainly they add intrigue, and are absolutely ingrained especially in respect of the time bonuses for stage wins/2nd/3rd at the line - however the point here is that all too often in the early days of the Women's Tour they were the be all and end all of the GC, whereas in the better editions of the race such as 2016 and 2019, they
complement the parcours in producing intrigue in the racing rather than
dominate it.
2014 GC
1 Marianne Vos (Rabobank)
2 Emma Johansson (Orica-GreenEdge) +30”
3 Rossella Ratto (Estado de Mexico-Faren) +35”
4 Giorgia Bronzini (Wiggle-High 5) +38”
5 Susanna Zorzi (Astana-BePink) +44”
6 Amy Pieters (Netherlands National) +50”
7 Lucy Garner (Great Britain National) +50”
8 Hannah Barnes (United Healthcare) +50”
9 Lauren Hall (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) +52”
10 Elena Cecchini (Estado de Mexico-Faren) +54”
2014 “on-the-road” GC
1 Rossella Ratto (Estadio de Mexico-Faren)
2 Susanna Zorzi (Astana-BePink) +4”
3 Marianne Vos (Rabobank) +6”
4 Giorgia Bronzini (Wiggle-High 5) +6”
5 Emma Johansson (Orica-GreenEdge) +6”
6 Lucy Garner (Great Britain National) +6”
7 Amy Pieters (Netherlands National) +6”
8 Elena Cecchini (Estado de Mexico-Faren) +6”
9 Aude Biannic (Lointek) +6”
10 Leah Kirchmann (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) +6”
Yes, I legitimately did the countback. Garner/Pieters/Cecchini are very, very close. The only stage which was not a bunch sprint was
stage 2, when Ratto and Zorzi held off the bunch by a few seconds. Zorzi was behind a split on the line on stage 4, so she lost 4" meaning Ratto would take the GC, with 12 riders at +6" and the remainder of those who were able to remain in the péloton throughout at +10" (6" lost to Ratto/Zorzi, and 4" on the line in stage 4). Johansson's advantage over Bronzini is entirely due to intermediate bonuses, while the American teams look to be adept at working those intermediate bonuses with Hannah Barnes and Lauren Hall getting into the top 10 on the strength of them. The "actual" GC spread of the top 10 is therefore
800% larger than the "on the road" GC, for a total difference of
48 seconds.
2015 GC
1 Lisa Brennauer (Velocio-SRAM)
2 Jolien d’Hoore (Wiggle-High 5) +6”
3 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) +7”
4 Emma Johansson (Orica-GreenEdge) +13”
5 Hannah Barnes (United Healthcare) +14”
6 Simona Frapporti (Alé-Cipollini) +26”
7 Leah Kirchmann (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) +29”
8 Alexis Ryan (United Healthcare) +30”
9 Pascale Jeuland (Poitou Charentes-Futuroscope ’86) +30”
10 Maria Giulia Confalonieri (Alé-Cipollini) +30”
2015 “on the road” GC
1 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans)
2 Lisa Brennauer (Velocio-SRAM) +2”
3 Emma Johansson (Orica-GreenEdge) +2”
4 Jolien d’Hoore (Wiggle-High 5) +2”
5 Hannah Barnes (United Healthcare) +2”
6 Alexis Ryan (United Healthcare) +5”
7 Pascale Jeuland (Poitou Charentes-Futuroscope ’86) +5”
8 Maria Giulia Confalonieri (Alé-Cipollini) +5”
9 Roxane Knetemann (Rabobank) +5”
10 Susanna Zorzi (Lotto-Belisol) +5”
The tightest spread of the top 10 to date in the Women's Tour, 2015's race was also won from the péloton. There were no breaks that stuck, and Majerus' victory "on the road" was the product of an attack in the final kilometre of the slightly uphill finish of
stage 3 that opened up a couple of small gaps at the line. Six riders made it to the line at +2" from Majerus before a second gap, but Guarischi and Garner lost time at the line in stage 4. Everyone from Ryan down got their position from the péloton. First and second on GC change due to time bonuses, while Johansson loses a podium, and Frapporti and Kirchmann's top 10s are entirely built around them (whereas Kirchmann lost out on a top 10 for the same reason in 2014). The 'actual' GC spread is therefore
500% larger and a total difference of
25 seconds
2016 GC
1 Lizzie Armitstead (Boels-Dolmans)
2 Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervélo-Bigla) +11”
3 Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-High 5) +13”
4 Marianne Vos (Rabobank) +18”
5 Amanda Spratt (Orica-Green Edge) +20”
6 Leah Kirchmann (Team Liv-Plantur) +40”
7 Amy Pieters (Wiggle-High 5) +43”
8 Emma Johansson (Wiggle-High 5) +49”
9 Gracie Elvin (Orica-Green Edge) +50”
10 Floortje Mackaij (Team Liv-Plantur) +53”
2016 “on the road” GC
1 Lizzie Armitstead (Boels Dolmans)
2 Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-High 5)
3 Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervélo-Bigla)
4 Amanda Spratt (Orica-Green Edge) +3”
5 Marianne Vos (Rabobank) +36"
6 Leah Kirchmann (Team Liv-Plantur) +36”
7 Amy Pieters (Wiggle-High 5) +36”
8 Floortje Mackaij (Team Liv-Plantur) +36”
9 Emma Johansson (Orica-Green Edge) +36”
10 Dani King (Wiggle-High 5) +36”
The main difference maker here is
stage 3, around Chesterfield, which was the most selective Women's Tour to date. The steep climb in the town of Matlock proved decisive, with Moolman-Pasio attacking and setting up the quartet which formed the top 4 in the "on the road" GC. Mackaij loses a couple of positions due to bonuses, while Elvin moves into the top 10 with them. ELB is ahead of Moolman-Pasio on the "on the road" GC due to countback, so Ash is 2nd on bonuses, and Vos overturns 35" of difference through time bonuses on Spratt, but for the first time, the winner "on the road" and the genuine GC winner are the same individual. We also, by virtue of the more selective stages (stage 4 also saw only 17 riders make it on no time loss, so once you get past the top 20 on GC the timeloss is well over 2 minutes), see the impact of the bonus seconds being much less, and much more of the race being settled on the road; the actual GC spread is
47% larger and a total difference of
17 seconds.
2017 GC
1 Kasia Niewiadoma (WM3)
2 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) +1’18”
3 Hannah Barnes (Canyon-SRAM) +1’30”
4 Leah Kirchmann (Sunweb) +1’36”
5 Ellen van Dijk (Sunweb) +1’39”
6 Alice Barnes (Drops) +1’47”
7 Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervélo-Bigla) +1’53”
8 Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Cervélo-Bigla) +1’59”
9 Dani King (Cylance) +2’00”
10 Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-High 5) +2’01”
2017 “on the road” GC
1 Kasia Niewiadoma (WM3)
2 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) +1’31”
3 Leah Kirchmann (Sunweb) +1’35”
4 Hannah Barnes (Canyon-SRAM) +1’37”
5 Ellen van Dijk (Sunweb) +1’37”
6 Alice Barnes (Drops) +1’42”
7 Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervélo-Bigla) +1’42”
8 Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Cervélo-Bigla) +1’48”
9 Dani King (Cylance) +1’49”
10 Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-High 5) +1’50”
2017 is a bit of an outlier, as you know, because of the gap that was afforded to Niewiadoma on
stage 1. That stage featured the same drag of a finish that Majerus had made her time gap on in 2015, so there were some differences at the line - 17 riders at +1'42", with 2 at +1'49, and 31 more at +1'50".
Stage 2 was also pretty decisive, with only 10 riders arriving at the same time as the winner, Amy Pieters; further groups were at +6", +10" and +15". This was much more fun to calculate, much less countback and more actual time gaps. A breakaway also took stage 4, although Roy who won the stage was GC-irrelevant, a few riders gained some meaningful time there. Very interesting how little the GC is impacted by bonus seconds here - apart from Kirchmann being displaced on the podium by Hannah Barnes, the top 10 is otherwise unchanged. The actual GC spread is
10% larger and a total difference of
11 seconds, the lowest of all.
2018 GC
1 Coryn Rivera (Sunweb)
2 Marianne Vos (Waowdeals) +11”
3 Dani Rowe (Waowdeals) +25”
4 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) +27”
5 Amy Pieters (Boels-Dolmans) +28”
6 Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-High 5) +32”
7 Eugenia Bujak-Alickun (BTC City-Ljubljana) +33”
8 Eva Buurman (Trek-Drops) +34”
9 Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Canyon-SRAM) +34”
10 Sabrina Stultiens (Waowdeals) +34”
2018 “on the road” GC
1 Marianne Vos (Waowdeals)
2 Coryn Rivera (Sunweb) +st
3 Eugenia Bujak-Alickun (BTC City-Ljubljana) +2”
4 Eva Buurman (Trek-Drops) +2”
5 Amy Pieters (Boels-Dolmans) +2”
6 Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-High 5) +2”
7 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) +2”
8 Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Canyon-SRAM) +2”
9 Dani Rowe (Waowdeals) +2”
10 Sabrina Stultiens (Waowdeals) +2”
Two steps forward, one step back; after two much more selective races (admittedly 2017's aggressive racing was necessitated by the stage 1 miscalculation, but the Stoke-on-Trent stage was strong and meant that there were notable gaps in position other than just Kasia's advantage), 2018's was, in terms of time spread, the most bonus-affected yet. As you can see, just 2" separates 1st and 10th - the differences are produced by the sprint in stage 3, where six riders finished in front of a small time gap. The most important stage was
stage 2 where the small Newnham Hill climb (1,2km @ 5%) was close enough to the finish to try something, but in the end 17 riders arrived on +st and only a few seconds ahead of another group of the same size. Marianne Vos and Coryn Rivera were the only riders to make it in front of both splits, so they are 1 and 2 on the 'on the road' GC, with Vos ahead on countback, in contrast to the real GC where Rivera held a comfortable GC lead thanks to time bonuses. The rest of the GC is settled by countback, as you can see the main benefactors are Dani Rowe and Christine Majerus, who gain several positions, and the main riders who lose out are Eugenia Bujak, who loses a podium, and Eva Buurman who loses four positions. Perhaps connected to that is the fact that those two riders are on the smallest teams among those in the top 10s of either the real or the assumed classification. With no attacks surviving, and the only difference very limited, we have an actual GC spread which is
1600% larger and amounting to
32 seconds
2019 GC
1 Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo)
2 Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) +2”
3 Amy Pieters (Boels-Dolmans) +23”
4 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) +49”
5 Demi Vollering (Parkhotel Valkenburg) +51”
6 Leah Kirchmann (Sunweb) +54”
7 Lizzie Banks (Bigla) +58”
8 Leah Thomas (Bigla) +58”
9 Malgorzata Jasinska (Movistar) +59”
10 Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) +1’01”
2019 “on the road” GC
1 Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM)
2 Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo) +7”
3 Amy Pieters (Boels-Dolmans) +24”
4 Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) +33”
5 Demi Vollering (Parkhotel Valkenburg) +37”
6 Lizzie Banks (Bigla) +40”
7 Malgorzata Jasinska (Movistar) +41”
8 Leah Thomas (Bigla) +43”
9 Leah Kirchmann (Sunweb) +45”
10 Marta Cavalli (Valcar-Cylance) +45”
And so on to this year's race. As you can see, it's the fourth time out of six that the winner 'on the road' has not taken the GC, but we have both in the real and assumed GCs the second biggest spread after the anomalous 2017 results. Time gaps on the line in all three sprint stages in the first half of the race, plus two genuine selective stages that shook up the GC, mean we had both one of the most competitive, most (racing-wise) interesting and most spread out races. And also, though this may be somewhat artificially affected by Vos crashing out after having accrued quite a few of them, one of the least affected by the bonus seconds as, other than Deignan inheriting the win (with a 9" turnaround due to bonuses, nothing compared to 2014 or 2018), only Kirchmann's final day bonus second grabbing, after Rivera's and Lippert's GCs failed, causes notable differences between the actual and non-time-adjusted GCs. The spread is
36% larger and the gap in absolute time terms is
16" difference, the second smallest.
Overall, therefore, 2017 is the race which has been
least affected by bonus seconds, with it amounting to a 10% time adjustment only across the GC top 10, and considering the 10" win bonus that Niewiadoma will have acquired for her stage win too, that suggests that there was little difference that would have been made over the course of the race by the time gaps, at least relative to Kasia, who didn't exactly go hell for leather picking up bonus seconds, partly as she already had a healthy lead and partly because she isn't much of a sprinter. Taking her out of the equation a 19" spread over the 'real' time gaps between places 2 to 10 becomes a 43" spread on the actual GC, which is more than 100%. Therefore I think 2017 is an outlier, and 2016 and 2019 are the best comparison points. We must also consider the differences between the highly selective
2016 Chesterfield stage and the much less selective
2017 stage around the same city, due to pacing issues with the 2016 stage arriving from the hilly west, and the 2017 stage using that terrain early in the stage but then finishing with the flatter east of the city.
With 2017 taken out of the equation, 2019 is the edition which sees the closest correlation between the actual GC and the situation on the road, which suggests that the route was selective enough to produce racing which was not heavily altered by the bonus seconds, or rather that, while the bonuses may have determined the actual winner of the race, they did not unduly change the race dynamics; the time bonuses did not negate the situation on the road, nor did they negate the time gaps created by the parcours as they had in 2014 and 2015; Lizzie did not win by strategically gathering bonus seconds; she won by being one of the strongest on the HTF, and by fighting very hard to not get dropped when it looked a couple of times like she might be after Niewiadoma counterattacked on the penultimate day; Lizzie had to be one of the strongest riders, and considering Lippert lost so much time in Wales, I think we can safely state that Lizzie and Kasia were the two strongest riders in the race, and Lizzie's tactical ability and greater all-round strength in terms of being able to access those bonuses that Kasia could not were the difference-maker.
The crowds in Burton Dassett were pretty good, especially considering the weather. Hopefully this can encourage more HTFs and stages with more significant obstacles, or pacing the stages better if places like Stoke on Trent and Chesterfield come back on to the race route. Although the fact that the GC has been settled by bonus seconds on 3/5 occasions prior to this week's race has been one of the things I have criticised about the Women's Tour, in terms of the ability to win it from the péloton, I don't actually feel bad or despondent about it becoming 4/6, because I don't really feel aggrieved that Deignan won it on time bonuses, because of what I stated above. Interestingly, it is the editions like 2016 and 2019 that have been best received generally among the fanbase (I'll have to wait for a few more rider reviews once the dust has settled, but I remember Deignan and Johansson both reviewing 2016 positively, especially after the latter was so scathing of the 2014 and 2015 routes). The selling of the race as one of the focal points of the calendar may have rung true from the perspective that the strong organization and the huge crowds made it a highlight of the calendar as an
experience for the riders, but at first it was very much a truism that as a
race the trumping itself up as one of the biggest races of the year rang a bit false at first, with sprints dominating, and I felt like the race was headed in the right direction, only for 2018 to be something of a regression, too easily controlled and too affected by bonus seconds (which my analysis above proves, with the GC being the most artificial of all editions thus far, with significant jumps up and down in position), so this year's race was a real leap forwards, back towards where the race should be.
The additional racing day was a bit of a washout; the Kent Cyclopark stage was pretty uneventful and didn't add anything to the race and with the lack of action the highlights took the form of an extended infomercial for the facility; however being a closed circuit means it probably didn't add too much to the organisational costs and extended the racing by a day, and is probably therefore a good way to phase the additional stage in. Hopefully this results in a sixth full road stage next year, or at least a more selective circuit race if they're going to go with something like that, which has some more undulating terrain or is at least wide enough that a team can't roadblock the front when they hit the tempo. Alternatively, an ITT would be nice from a fan's perspective; I noticed that Karl Lima, the Hitec boss, pointed out that although they'd be over a smaller area, this would increase costs to organizers (closing off and policing a whole area for the duration rather than rolling roadblocks) and teams (having to take the TT bikes and gear too) which may have been a factor, so unless they could get, say, a motor racing venue like Silverstone or Donington Park to host the TT, a bit like the Miller Motorsports Park TTT in the Tour of Utah a few years ago, this would probably not be an easy way to extend the event.