Wiggle High5 Pro Cycling race La Course 2016

Wiggle High5 Pro Cycling race La Course 2016

Wiggle High5 team triumphant in Paris

It was a team effort that got them on the podium

Wiggle

Helen Cousins

Published: July 26, 2016 at 2:00 pm
It was a team effort that got them on the podium - Wiggle
The Wiggle High5 Pro Cycling team - Wiggle
Chloe Hosking gets ready for a day in the saddle - Wiggle
British Olympic champion Dani King signs on for La Course - Wiggle
Amy Pieters leads the peloton along the Champs-Élysées - Wiggle
British fans cheered on riders from the Wiggle High5 team - Wiggle
With temperatures in Paris reaching 28°c the team’s support crew made sure that they stayed hydrated - Wiggle
Chloe Hosking sprints to victory to take the win at La Course 2016 - Wiggle
1. Chloe Hosking (Wiggle High5 Pro Cycling), 2. Lotta Lepistö (Cervélo-Bigla), 3. Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv) - Wiggle
There’s always time for a selfie, and where better than with the Arc de Triomphe as your backdrop? - Wiggle
The team’s new Sport Director, Donna Rae-Szalinski - Wiggle
Back at the hotel the team celebrate and relax - Wiggle
The Wiggle High5 team took us for a ride the next day, albeit at a much more leisurely pace - Wiggle

This weekend BikeRadar was invited to spend the weekend with the Wiggle High5 Pro Cycling team as they prepared to take on La Course in Paris ahead of the final stage of the Tour de France — and it was pretty exciting.

Round 12 of the UCI’s Women’s WorldTour, and the third edition of La Course by Le Tour, the riders took on 13 laps of the Paris circuit along the prestigious Champs-Élysées covering a total distance of 89km.

The final team were confirmed as GB Team Pursuit World Cup Winner Amy Roberts, two times GB World Road Race Champion Lucy Garner, GB Team Pursuit Olympic and World Champion Dani King, French National Time Trial Champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot, Australian sprinter and Michelton Bay Classic Series Winner Chloe Hosking and Dutch National Track Champion Amy Pieters.

My team mates did a fantastic job which meant I didn’t have to overstretch and they enabled me to save my power. I’m so thrilled to have won

The team entered the race with high hopes after some strong results in the lead up to the event, with Hosking one of the favourites after winning stage 3 of the Giro Rosa earlier this month and taking the overall victory in the Tour of Chongming in May.

After last year’s rain soaked race, this year the sun shone but the crashes still came and the Wiggle High5 team weren’t immune with Dani King and Audrey Cordon-Ragot both getting caught up in late crashes. The pavé also proved tricky with a number of jumped-off chains as well as a few lost Garmins.

Despite this, the team worked hard to deliver Hosking to the finish straight in a bunch sprint where she surged past Ellen Van Dijk (Boels-Dolmans), Finnish Champion Lotta Lepistö (Cervélo-Bigla) and former World Champion and 2014 La Course winner Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv).

Hosking said, “I really can’t believe I won today. I know I felt good but when it comes to major events like today, I never seem to be able to pull it off, so breaking that trend is a real relief. My team mates did a fantastic job which meant I didn’t have to overstretch and they enabled me to save my power. I’m so thrilled to have won.”

Take a look through the gallery above to see more from the riders and their triumphant weekend in Paris.

Helen Cousins

Operations manager

Helen Cousins has been at BikeRadar since 2016 and has more than 13 years of writing and editing experience on a wide range of consumer and specialist titles. Helen is now our operations manager, working across BikeRadar, Cycling Plus and MBUK, and can be found riding her Liv Devote Advanced on the gravel tracks of Wiltshire and Somerset, or her Cannondale Synapse road bike on local country lanes. In winter, Helen prefers to head indoors on Zwift, but her favourite place to ride is Mallorca, for sunnier climes and epic climbs.
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