Welsh cycling fans are in for a treat this weekend. The Tour of Britain Women, the biggest women’s road cycling race in the UK, is spending two full days on Welsh roads, bringing a field packed with some of the sport’s finest riders through landscapes that look like they were designed with dramatic finish-line photos in mind.
Five Stages, Two Days in Wales
This year’s race is running across five stages for the first time, stretching from a Cumbria start on Wednesday all the way to a Warwickshire finish on Sunday, 23 August. Wales sits right in the middle of that journey, hosting stage three and stage four on consecutive days.
According to BBC Sport’s race coverage, stage three takes riders on a 104.7km route starting in Mold and finishing at the iconic Great Orme headland in Llandudno. It is a route that combines the surprise of a brand new host town with one of Wales’s most recognisable natural landmarks as the payoff. Mold has never before hosted a start in the women’s race, and Flintshire as a whole is a first-time venue for this event, even though the men’s Tour has previously passed through the area.
Then on Saturday, the peloton heads south for stage four, a punishing 138.3km haul from Llanidloes to Hay-on-Wye. If stage three is dramatic, stage four is brutal in the best possible way. It carries the highest total ascent of any stage in the entire race, with riders grinding through 2,280 metres of climbing before they even see the famous book-town finish in Hay-on-Wye.
Powys Knows How to Host a Race
Powys is no stranger to this kind of occasion. The region has been welcoming Tour of Britain stages, both men’s and women’s, since 2010. There is something fitting about returning to roads that have already seen years of elite racing. The local knowledge, the crowds that know where to stand, the understanding of just how hard those climbs really are when you watch riders tackling them in person rather than on television. Stage four through Powys will carry all of that history on its shoulders.
The Names on the Start Line
The field is genuinely elite. Sitting at the top of the general classification is race leader Lorena Wiebes, one of the most explosive sprinters in the women’s peloton. Alongside her in the headline conversations is Lotte Kopecky of SD Worx – Protime, who won the Tour of Britain Women in 2024 and holds two world championship titles to her name. Kopecky’s ability to handle both fast finishes and punishing climbs makes her a constant threat no matter what the road throws at the field.
British fans also have a reason to pay close attention closer to home. Zoe Backstedt, one of the most exciting young riders to come out of Britain in recent years, is also in contention. For Welsh fans specifically, there is the added pleasure of watching homegrown riders share tarmac with riders of that calibre. Local talent racing on local roads, in front of local crowds, with world-class competition as the measuring stick. It does not get better than that.
Why This Moment Matters for Women’s Cycling in Wales
The expansion to five stages is not a small detail. It signals a race that is growing in ambition, and Wales is being trusted with a central role in that growth. When a race like this plants its flag in a new town like Mold, it leaves something behind: a memory, a photo finish, a reason for kids watching on the roadside to think that cycling might be something they want to do.
The Great Orme finish on Friday and the brutal mountain stage to Hay-on-Wye on Saturday are the kind of set pieces that define a race’s identity. Wales, with its mix of coastal drama and inland climbing, is delivering both in the space of 24 hours. The roads are ready. The crowds will be there. The riders are among the best in the world.
Will this be the weekend Kopecky reclaims the leader’s jersey, or is there a stage win waiting for one of the Welsh riders racing on home soil? Head to the roadside and find out.
