For the first time in its four-year history, the Women’s Tour of Britain will enjoy a grandstand finale in the centre of London on Sunday, and Poland’s Kasia Niewiadoma will have every right to enjoy the occasion after dominating the three days of racing since her solo victory on Wednesday’s first stage from Daventry to Kettering, where she carved out a 1min 46sec lead that has proved impregnable, in spite of the best efforts of her rivals.

On the toughest stage of the Women’s Tour, 122km out and back, a finish close to the church with the twisted spire, the Dutch teams Sunweb and Boels-Dolman both put the 22-year-old under pressure. Sunweb placed their Canadian rider Leah Kirchmann in an escape that lasted more than 90km, surviving to the finish, where Australia’s Sarah Roy took the stage win.

Boels-Dolman used the strength of the 2016 winner, Lizzie Deignan, to claw back the early three-woman escape, including Kirchmann, to within reach of the peloton before – in a classic tactical move – sending their best hope for the overall title, Luxembourg’s Christine Majerus, across to join Kirchmann’s group with 50km remaining.

Together with Roy and Shara Gillow, of the FDJ team, Kirchmann and Majerus raced into a lead of more than two minutes, with Niewiadoma isolated in a select chasing group that had formed during the excruciatingly tough opening phase, which alternated leg-breaking climbs and greasy twisting descents. The Pole needed the support of her team-mate Marianne Vos, but the multiple world champion and 2014 winner of this race had pulled out on Friday with a cracked collarbone after a late crash.

Deignan’s hopes of a repeat victory had evaporated after she was struck down by stomach trouble during Thursday’s hilly second stage around Stoke, losing nine minutes. Here she was prominent, but only in a team role midway through the stage, as Boels-Dolman chased the early breakaways before sending Majerus across the gap, while she could be seen later on protecting her team-mate’s bid for the overall title as the chase intensified behind.

However, the chasing group swelled as riders left behind in the early kilometres regained contact, and a chase – led notably by the Canyon-SRAM team-mates of the British national champion Hannah Barnes – brought the peloton to almost within touching distance of the escapees by the finish.

“This was one of the hardest races I’ve ever ridden,” said Niewiadoma, the under-23 European champion. “There were lots and lots of short and steep climbs; after a while I was completely done in, and then I had to think about controlling the other teams. I had to stay calm and think positively, I knew other teams would be destroyed on that course.”

In April, during the Ardennes Classics, Niewiadoma offered a taste of the form she has enjoyed this week, matching Deignan and the Olympic champion Anna Van der Breggen in Amstel Gold, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Her victory on Sunday should be a clear-cut one, but that proviso has a little more bite to it than usual. The unexpected can always happen, as evidenced by a freak crash on the finish line that sent the stage winner, Roy, to hospital.

With echoes of Deignan’s high-speed accident on the opening stage in 2015, Roy sprinted up the cobbled street in front of Chesterfield’s market hall, about 10 metres in front of Majerus and Kirchmann, with the peloton breathing down their necks behind; as she raised her hands in the air to celebrate after crossing the line, she lost control of her front wheel on the bouncy cobbles, jack-knifed her bike and landed heavily on her right side.

Roy was not alone in finding Derbyshire a road of pain. Within 20 miles of the start, the race was in ribbons because of the constant steep climbs – several tackled after dead turns, which meant the riders started them almost from a standstill. The weaker riders buckled rapidly, and midway through the stage the broom wagon that picks up the stragglers had no sitting space left, with those who wanted to quit reduced to finding places in other race vehicles.

The Olympic road race champion, Katie Archibald, finished with blood streaming down her right leg and her jersey ripped, after a crash 10km from the finish. She crossed the line on the coat-tails of the bunch and dropped to 19th overall. She is now out of the running for the prize of best Briton, which has proved an entertaining subplot, acted out by the Barnes sisters, Hannah and Alice. After the younger sibling, Alice, took the jersey on Friday, thanks to a fine second place in Leamington, it went to Hannah on Saturday thanks to a strong fifth place and a fortuitous split in the peloton in the uphill finish.

The 79 survivors will be more than conscious of the recent background to Sunday’s climax in the British capital, if the feelings of the Queen of the Mountains, Audrey Cordon, are anything to go by. “I’ve been thinking about everything that happened,” said the Frenchwoman in a reference to the London Bridge terrorist attack, adding: “Racing will show that life goes on. Women can be on their bikes, be strong, and show that we know how to live.”