Anna Christian shakes off late call up to animate Tour de Yorkshire women's race

Anna Christian made the most of her late call up to the Trek-Drops team, to animate the first stage of the Tour de Yorkshire women's race and ultimately secure the Most Active Rider jersey.

"I got pulled into the team at the last minute and only got asked Tuesday afternoon to see if I could come, and I thought why not. I love this race and I was happy to get the opportunity," Christian said.

Christian's breakaway companion was ParkHotel Valkenburg's Natalie Van Gogh, forming shortly after the first intermediate sprint in Pocklington.

"I heard the ParkHotel girl had gone up the road, they love a breakaway and are pretty good to work with. So when I just found myself on the right of the road at the perfect time I just jumped across."

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Despite working well to form the initial break, Van Gogh attacked Christian with 23 kilometres to go to effectively end the breakaway,

"I think we could have held on a little bit longer, I think she thought I attacked her," added Christian. "I just kicked a bit harder and she thought ‘urgh’ and attacked me and then there wasn’t that far between us at all. If she could just sit up we could have worked together again but obviously she wanted to try and go solo."

Tomorrow's stage will decide the general classification of the race with a summit finish atop the Cow and Calf.

"Everyone is talking about it and I’ll have to see how the legs are feeling, but we’ve got Abby-Mae Parkinson who is from Yorkshire and loves this race too so I think she’ll have a good race tomorrow."

Christian wasn't the only British rider to secure a jersey as 17-year old Pfeiffer Georgi took the only QoM points on offer up Côte de Baggaby Hill,

"When the race route first came out my dad said to me that there was one QoM on the first day so whoever wins that gets the jersey," said Georgi, "so in the back of my mind I kind of wanted to give it a go because I had nothing to lose its my first big race with the ladies."