Despite an excellent team performance in the elite women's road race at the UCI Road World Championships the British team were left without a medal after a late catch saw Hannah Barnes – their best-placed rider - fade to 14th place.
Having skipped away with Audrey Cordon (France) and eventual winner Chantal Blaak (Netherlands) in the closing laps, Barnes, the fastest of the three, looked on course for a medal. However, the Dutch team had other ideas and pulled the trio back on the final climb of Salmon Hill. Even with the additional batch of riders, Barnes was a good bet for the sprint but she was powerless when Blaak launched her winning move, and the British rider was then swamped by the bunch in the closing few hundred meters.
Lizzie Deignan, who came into the race as the team's former champion and best hope on paper at least, was in contention for most of the race but was understandably off the pace after only having her appendix out a few weeks ago. She paid tribute to the team for the collective effort after almost every one of their riders played an attacking role in the race.
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"It's an incredible performance from the team. Everyone was part of the bike race. I was probably the least active. But had I moved it would probably have been a waste of my time anyway. So I was happy I was able to stay in there as long as I did. But it was a phenomenal race from everybody. That has never happened to me in a Great Britain team before, so really impressed with everybody," she told Cyclingnews and the Telegraph.
"I didn't ask for any kind of shepherding. I wanted the girls to take advantage of the fact that they could go – and they really did. I just wish I'd been able to do something but I couldn't. There was nothing I could do but try to follow the fireworks when they go off. But I couldn't."
"We lost the final game but at least we were in the game. We missed a leader. We missed somebody who could follow them. If I'd have been there and been able to back Hannah she might have been able to pull a sneaky move off the front like Chantal did."
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