Lizzie Deignan savours first stage win since return to action

Lizzie Deignan wins stage five - Llandrindod Wells to Builth Wells - on the OVO Energy Women's Tour. Picture: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com

The 30-year-old from Otley triumphed in a sprint finish over previous stage winner Katarzyna Niewiadoma and Trek-Segafredo team-mate Elisa Longo Borghini to take the leader’s jersey by a single second.

The stage five success was Deignan’s first victory since she returned to the sport following maternity leave.

Deignan said: “I can’t quite really describe it – it was probably the nicest win I’ve had in a very long time.

Lizzie Deignan of Trek Segafredo celebrates her stage win on the OVO Energy Women's Tour with team-mate Elisa Longo Borghini. Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com

“I really savoured and enjoyed it.”

Having broken clear prior to the final Queen of the Mountains sprint, the leading trio kept the peloton at bay as they jostled for position ahead of the finish.

Longo Borghini led her team-mate around the final turn before Deignan pounced to edge her Polish rival and give her the advantage ahead of today’s race conclusion in Carmarthenshire.

Adam Yates clung on to his overall lead in the Criterium du Dauphine after finishing safely in the peloton at the end of stage six to Saint Michel de Maurienne.

The Briton, racing for Michelton-Scott, will take a slender four-second advantage over Belgium’s Dylan Teuns into the weekend’s decisive mountain stages, with other big names limbering up for the fight ahead.

Julian Alaphilippe won a sprint finish over Bora-Hansgrohe’s Gregor Muhlberger to win the stage after a strong attacking performance which also saw Alessandro De Marchi (CCC Team) cross the line in third.

The trio had escaped the pack towards the end of the stage and the jostle for victory proved too much for De Marchi, who dropped back while the Frenchman claimed the win on a photo finish.

Chris Froome seems certain not to race again this season but could end it with a seventh Grand Tour title all the same.

As the Team Ineos rider awoke following a six-hour operation to treat multiple fractures suffered in a horror crash, news broke that 2011 Vuelta a Espana winner Juan Jose Cobo has been found guilty of a doping offence and stands to lose his title.

That could elevate Froome to a second Vuelta win, and make him the first British Grand Tour winner, some 10 months before Sir Bradley Wiggins won the 2012 Tour de France.