2026 Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix RACE Report

Courtesy of The British Continental (follow this link to view the original article)

Morven Yeoman led home a DAS–Hutchinson one-two in the women’s Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, ahead of teammate Noémie Thomson, who retained her Rapha Super-League lead. Anna Morris (Wales) completed the podium after a late final-lap fightback.

In the afternoon, Ollie Wood (Rapha Cycling Club) won the 70th edition of the open race, getting the better of Jack Rootkin-Gray on the final ascent of Michaelgate after Danylo Riwnyj (Forac CT) punctured out of the winning move. Tom Armstrong (Wheelbase CabTech Castelli) took third, with Alex Foster (Cycling Sheffield) taking a standout fourth after leading the chase up the final climb.

FULL RESULTS - Open Race Women’s Race
 

Women's race

Staged as part of the 70th edition of the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, the women’s race rolled out with 98 starters, eight laps, and a circuit redrawn for the first time in 38 years.

Michaelgate now led into a longer cobbled passage through Castle Square, Exchequer Gate Arch and Minster Yard before the race dropped away from the cathedral. The route had changed, but Lincoln’s central test remained intact: repeated accelerations on the stones, lap after lap.

The race carried considerable series weight. Noémie Thomson (DAS–Hutchinson) started the day as Rapha Super-League leader after her win at the Women’s CiCLE Classic, while her teammate Katie Scott wore the National Road Series leader’s jersey after winning the East Cleveland Classic, which prompted a transfer to the team from Paralloy RT.

If East Cleveland had exposed DAS–Hutchinson’s absence from the front of the race, Lincoln produced the response.

After a steady opening, with the field still together on the first passage to the A57 and through the feed, DAS–Hutchinson made the first significant move. On Bailgate, Ellie Parry, Scott and Morven Yeoman went clear. Their lead opened to 10 seconds before Anna Morris (Wales), already a winner at the Peak 2 Day, Capernwray and Witham Hall this spring, bridged across as the move began to draw more riders out of the bunch.

Soon the split had become the race. Jo Tindley (Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team), racing on home roads, made it across, as did Ella Maclean-Howell (Wales), Marjolein van’t Geloof (Laboral Kutxa–Fundación Euskadi), Ruby Oakes (FTP–Fulfil The Potential Racing), Amy Henchoz (Paralloy RT), Beth Morrow and Arianne Holland (both Handsling Alba Development Road Team).

More important than the names was the balance of power. When the front group settled, DAS–Hutchinson had seven of their eight riders in it. The peloton was already on the wrong side of the race.

Through the third lap, the front group continued to fracture. Yeoman and Van’t Geloof briefly pressed clear, with 19 riders behind them and the peloton at 1min 25sec. When the pace eased at the front, the gap to the bunch fell back to 55 seconds.

Then came the decisive move. On the third ascent of Michaelgate, Thomson, Yeoman and Oakes attacked clear. The move contained the race’s essential ingredients: the Rapha Super-League leader, one of DAS–Hutchinson’s strongest riders, and Oakes — now racing for FTP–Fulfil The Potential Racing, but a DAS rider last season — the only rider able to interrupt the team’s control.

Image: Milan Josy/The British Continental

By lap four the leading three had 15 seconds. Soon it was 30. By lap five, with the peloton 2min 14sec behind the front of the race, their advantage over the chasers had stretched to a minute. Soon after, it was 1min 55sec.

Behind them, the race began to come apart. On lap six, as the leaders passed the cathedral, Jennifer Powell (Performance Development Team) was alone in pursuit, 1min 30sec down. The peloton followed another 30 seconds behind, having effectively absorbed what had been the chasing group.

Lucy Lee (DAS–Hutchinson) then attacked from what remained of the chase, briefly threatening to make the team’s grip on the race even tighter. But the decisive action was still ahead.

Yeoman attacked from the leading trio. This time, the move stuck. At the bell, she led alone by 25 seconds, while Thomson had dropped Oakes and was alone in second. With one lap remaining, DAS–Hutchinson occupied first and second on the road.

The final lap tightened the race without changing its direction. Thomson made it back across to Yeoman, giving DAS–Hutchinson two riders together at the head of the race. They reached the finish together, with Yeoman taking victory ahead of Thomson. It was Yeoman’s first National A road race win.

“I’m just in complete shock at the minute,” Yeoman told The British Continental afterwards. “I’ve really, really been working hard towards a goal, something like this, as big as this, and to win Lincoln, it’s just unbelievable.”

Image: Milan Josy/The British Continental

Behind them, the podium fight changed late. Oakes had looked set to hold third, but Morris came back into contention on the final lap and took the final podium place, 52 seconds down. Oakes finished fourth at 53 seconds, with Knight fifth at 59 seconds to give DAS–Hutchinson three riders in the top five.

Morris had not realised a podium place was still available until the final climb. “I couldn’t believe it when we came up that final bit of the climb and I could see two riders ahead,” she told The British Continental. “I thought, ‘oh my goodness, the place is up for grabs here.’ I was all in just to try and get to that line.”

For DAS–Hutchinson, the result was a direct answer to East Cleveland. “We had a really good team talk last night,” Yeoman said. “When these races come together for us, we can do things like that. East Cleveland was just a bit of a blip — people were on bad days, and they happen — but it made us hungry to come here today and put everything right again.”

Thomson’s second place means she continues as Rapha Super-League leader, one point ahead of Yeoman, with the DAS–Hutchinson pair now clear of Lily Martin (Loughborough Lightning), who sits third, 23 points behind Yeoman. Yeoman’s win also moves her into the National Road Series lead, while DAS–Hutchinson now lead the team standings.

Open Race

The 70th edition of the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix began in front of huge crowds and with 145 riders on the start line. By the finish, after nearly four hours of attrition, only 44 would be classified. The race had been narrowed slowly, then sharply: first by the repeated pressure of Lincoln’s roads, then by a late four-rider move, and finally by Michaelgate.

The defending champion, James McKay, was absent. In his place came a field heavy with National Road Series contenders, former Lincoln performers, UCI-level experience and riders still looking to turn early-season form into a defining domestic result.

The first break came early. Cameron McLaren (TAAP Kalas), Matthew Webber (TAAP Kalas), Ethan Squires (BCC Race Team) and Joseph Turnbull (Moonglu SpatzWear) opened a 30-second lead, stretching it to 40 seconds by lap two.

Then the race was interrupted. A crash in the peloton briefly blocked the road, with a Cycling Sheffield rider down, and there were suggestions at the start of lap three that the race might have to be neutralised. The break was also reduced, with Squires dropping out after crashing.

By Michaelgate on lap three, the early move was over. The peloton, led by Harry Macfarlane (Ride Revolution Coaching), caught the break on the climb, but the catch did not bring calm. The bunch was already beginning to stretch.

The more meaningful selection came not in one clean moment, but by accumulation. Through the middle laps, the race began to shed riders: first into a 40-rider front group, then into three distinct pieces on the road.

From that narrowing race came the move that would decide it. Riwnyj, Rootkin-Gray, Wood, Armstrong and William Truelove (JAKROO Handsling Racing) pushed clear, with the remains of the front group still close enough behind to keep them under pressure. Truelove would later lose contact, leaving Armstrong, Wood, Riwnyj and Rootkin-Gray ahead.

Wood had been active early, perhaps too active by his own reckoning. “After a couple of hours, I thought I’d done a bit too much, to be honest,” he told The British Continental afterwards. “But I found myself in what was the winning move, and just stuck at it.”

For several laps, the quartet were never quite out of reach. The gap hovered around 25 seconds, stretching to 30 as the chase began to splinter, but never far enough to make the final laps feel settled. Wood expected the move to come back once Truelove had been distanced and JAKROO Handsling no longer had a rider in front.

“I kind of thought they were going to chase us for it to come back,” he said. “They got close a few times, and then it just seemed to stop. We had a few time checks and they were under 20 seconds a few times. You look back, but we just stuck at it and kept riding.”

On the penultimate ascent of Michaelgate, Adam Lewis (APS Pro Cycling) attacked from the chasing group, with Matt Bostock (Rapha Cycling Club) immediately on his wheel. Bostock had been visible throughout, repeatedly present when the race was under pressure, but neither he nor Lewis could get across.

Then came the moment that reduced the winning move. On Fern Road, Riwnyj punctured out of the lead group, removing one of the strongest riders from the front of the race and leaving Wood, Rootkin-Gray and Armstrong to settle the 70th edition between them.

The three worked well together deep into the final lap, only beginning to hesitate inside the final kilometre. Armstrong moved to the front, but no one came through. By then, he appeared close to his limit.

As the race hit the bottom of Michaelgate, Wood and Rootkin-Gray pulled away from Armstrong. Wood then got the better of Rootkin-Gray on the climb, opening several seconds by the line.

“I wasn’t super confident going in,” Wood said of the final climb. “I feel like I’ve got a good finish, but I wasn’t super confident, having the sensations the last few times. I just went all in. Once I got past Jack on a few corners just before it sort of levels off, by the time I hit the tarmac at the top, I looked back and I was clear.”

Rootkin-Gray took second, but only just. Armstrong, distanced at the foot of Michaelgate, came back at him fast in the final metres, with Rootkin-Gray apparently unaware how quickly the gap was closing, while behind them, the chase closed rapidly.

Foster led that chase up the final climb and came within touching distance of the podium, finishing fourth at 10 seconds. It was a major result for both rider and team, and a striking end to a race in which Cycling Sheffield had earlier been caught up in the crash that briefly threatened to neutralise the race.

Defending Rapha Super-League champion Bostock completed the top five, 12 seconds behind Wood, after a race spent repeatedly close to the action.

The result reshapes both series, beginning with the Rapha Super-League. Armstrong moves into the lead, with Harrison Dainty (JAKROO Handsling Racing) and William Tidball (Velo Club Villefranche Beaujolais) level behind him. Wood’s Lincoln victory lifts him firmly into the picture, with the next round set for the London Nocturne on 13 June.

Armstrong’s third place also moves him into the Open National Road Series lead on 78 points, ahead of Alex Franks (JAKROO Handsling Racing) on 75 and Lucas Jowett (Mypad Racing p/b ONDO Sports) on 70, while Wheelbase CabTech Castelli lead the team classification after round two.