• Cyclist less than two weeks into return after birth of daughter • Harrogate will also host 2019 world road race championships

Less than two weeks into her return to racing after the birth of her daughter last autumn, Lizzie Deignan gets a preview of her main goal for the year. On Friday stage one of the Women’s Tour de Yorkshire tackles the circuit within Harrogate that will decide the world road race championships when they are held there in September.

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Deignan, who comes from just down the road in Otley and owns a house in Harrogate, has had her sights set on repeating the world title she won in 2015 since deciding to return to cycling roughly a month into her pregnancy. The challenge of climbing back to the top as a mother has, she says, given a whole new impetus to her cycling.

She had no immediate deadline for a comeback to racing but opted to start last week’s three Ardennes Classics – the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège – offering hints her best form is not far away when she figured in the frontrunners at Liège, where she finished seventh.

While the men’s Tour de Yorkshire has suffered from a clash with the Tour de Romandie, and features only four World Tour teams, the women’s two-day race has a daunting lineup, including the Olympic champion Anna van der Breggen, who won La Flèche Wallonne, the Liège victor, Annemiek van Vleuten, and the rider with the richest record in women’s cycling, Marianne Vos.

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Deignan is one of a number of strong British riders in the field, which includes the former national champion Hannah Barnes, the former junior world champion Lucy Garner and Sophie Wright, the revelation of last year’s European championships. Both stages are identical to those in the men’s race: the odds are on a blanket finish after Friday’s 132km into Bedale, while Saturday’s second leg over a hilly course into Scarborough is likely to prove spectacular and decisive.