Girl Power! Silver medalist Lizzie Armitstead rode through London SW to victory

Lizzie Armitstead’s 140km road race Silver medal has established the UK as a great cycling nation. It is the first medal for Team GB at the London 2012.

World’s no.1, 2 and 3 Women’s road race riders at Fulham Road, SW6. From the right: Netherland’s Marianne Vos, GB’s Lizzie Armitstead and Russia’s Olga Zabelinskaya are 5km from finishing line at this point. Photo © Zarina Holmes

Today, we saw the second day of the Olympics road race passing through London SW.

SWXX chose to wait for the returning Women riders at Fulham Road, near Stamford Bridge, which was less busy than Putney High Street.

We waited at The Butcher’s Hook pub, which was showing the race on their screen. The pub manager, Paul, showed me the video footage of the peloton passing Fulham Road earlier at noon on his mobile phone.

Women’s Olympics road race riders storming down Fulham Road in the torrential rain today. It was a gritty 140km race. Photo © Zarina Holmes

The weather was not as great as yesterday during the Men’s road race. The rainy cloud seemed to be following the women from Leatherhead (40km away from finishing line) until Fulham Road (5km from the finishing line at The Mall).

I was not too thrilled when the sky opened. Luckily a few lovely Americans offered me to shelter under their umbrella.

Stamford Bridge at Fulham Road is 5km away from finishing line at The Mall. Photo © Zarina Holmes

At around 3.45 we saw the top three women – Lizzie Armitstead (Team GB), Marianne Vos (Netherland) and Olga Zabelinskaya (Russia) battling their way towards the finishing line.

Armitstead was clearly leading the trio at this point. However, the world’s no.1, Vos, was too strong and bagged the Gold medal. Zabelinskaya took the Bronze.

Lizzie Armitstead was still leading ahead of Netherland’s Marianne Vos and Russia’s Olga Zabelinskaya at Fulham Road. Vos won Gold and Armistead won Silver. The result pushed Team GB into 16th place today. © Zarina Holmes

The rest of the peloton trailed 2-3 minutes behind the three leaders, with the torrential rain pounding on them. It looked like a real gritty race on the slippery road.

Chapeau to all the competing ladies. Girl Power to Lizzie and the GB Women team!