Lorena Wiebes makes it look easy winning into Glasgow, where Ireland’s Lara Gillespie took her best result from what became a very hard edition of Tour of Britain (Photo: Alex Whitehead-SWpix.com)

Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) has saved the best to last at the Tour of Britain, where she took a top 15 result on the final stage into Glasgow today. That ended a savage edition of the race that saw the field split to pieces on three of the four stages.

Having grown used to seeing Gillespie perform at the front this season, this week did not quite go according to plan, though she was getting back into racing after several weeks away – following La Vuelta.

The general classification battle also became a priority for Gillespie’s team, especially as the race split, producing only one chance for sprinters. Gillespie had team mate Karlijn Swinkels vying for a place on the podium through the event, with the Dutch rider finishing 3rd on the final GC.

Lorena Wiebes (Team SD Worx-Protime) won Sunday’s 82km circuit race in Glasgow today in a bunch sprint ahead of runner-up Charlotte Kool (Team Picnic PostNL) and Ally Wollaston (FDJ-SUEZ).

Gillespie was in 15th place on the stage, on the same time as winner Wiebes, while young Aoife O’Brien (DAS-Hutchinson) was also in the bunch today, placing 43rd.

O’Brien, a 21-year-old from Co Westmeath, was making her World Tour stage race debut in Britain this week. Somehow mixing university with racing at this level, she will have taken a lot from the experience of the last four days towards aiming for results through the second half of the season.

On today’s finale, the big drama was the 3rd place finish, and the bonus seconds harvested by Kiwi Wollaston. She picked up a whopping 13 seconds in time bonuses today, having started the stage in 2nd place overall.

This morning she was just three seconds down on race leader, British phenom Cat Ferguson (Movistar), who won yesterday’s stage into Kelso, to take the race lead, and who was last year’s junior road race and TT world champion.

That performance today by Wollaston – the reigning omnium and elimination race world champion – nudged Ferguson out of the leader’s jersey, shunting her into 2nd place in the final overall.

And as Ferguson was in tears at the finish, after losing her home stage race by just four seconds, Wollaston and her team mates were rejoicing. Still, teenager Ferguson came away with a stage win, and the points and young rider classifications.

For Gillespie and O’Brien, they will benefit from really being put through their paces this week, with wind and rain ensuring the field split significantly on the first three stages before today’s bunch sprint.