Welsh Grand Départ for first ever Tour of Britain Women, British Cycling confirms

The first edition of the Tour of Britain Women will start in mid-Wales before concluding in Manchester, British Cycling confirmed on Monday.

As first reported by Cycling Weekly, the opening stage will take place between Welshpool and Llandudno before moving on to Wrexham for the start and finish of stage two.

Warrington will play host to the race on day three for a flatter stage before the event moves onto Greater Manchester for its conclusion. Stage four will see the race get underway outside British Cycling’s headquarters at the National Cycling Centre before the event wraps up in Leigh where the race winner will be crowned. 

Speaking to Cycling Weekly on Monday at the National Cycling Centre, British Cycling CEO Jon Dutton said the route announcement was a moment for celebration after the national federation had overcome various obstacles to make the Tour of Britain Women a reality. 

"It’s a really positive day and is exciting for us," Dutton said. "When we got together, I think it was ten weeks ago now, we said that this was on a knife edge and we were in a race against the clock."

"I just want to put on record my thanks to our team who have worked extraordinarily hard to overcome those challenges and to get us where we are today," he added.

Dutton said that the course assembled by the events team would make for enthralling and "unpredictable" racing.

"Within the confines of four days and the time that we’ve had, I think we’ve got a bit of everything," he said. "I think the start and the end of the race, day one and day four, will be really challenging. 

"That will make for great racing which is exactly what we wanted within the scope of time, resources and everything else. We also wanted to make it as compact a race as possible in 2024 and I think we've delivered against that."

Search for sponsorship continues

Part of that growth period around the two events has involved bringing in Rod Ellingworth, former Ineos Grenadiers deputy team principal, as race director for both races.

"It's been enormous for us and just a real privilege to work with someone with that much experience but also someone who's really humble," Dutton said regarding the appointment of Ellingworth. "Rod really bought into our vision and he came in one day and said 'we must talk about 2025 and 2026' and that's his attitude."

Despite the route now being confirmed, the race still lacks commercial partners or sponsorship. Dutton admitted that year one may see the races "run at a deficit" due to both events being "expensive" races to deliver, but said he was enthusiastic about ongoing conversations regarding new backing.

"It's still a work in progress but we’re still in quite a positive place," he said. "If you go back through the commercial journey for us, we came out of the market last year. 

"We re-entered with a great deal of confidence in January and that was based on a new storyboard, a new narrative with a five year event vision and new social impact programme. 

"We worked really hard at the back end of last year to curate all of those and they've prompted some really interesting conversations."

Cycling Weekly recently revealed that British Cycling had decided to scale back the men’s race in September with the aim of both the men's and women's races being of equal length - six stages - in the future.

Dutton concluded with confirmation that the national federation would soon be in a position to share details of the men’s race.