OTLEY rider Lizzie Deignan gutted out a middle-of-pack finish in the two-stage Women's Tour de Yorkshire.

However, Burley-in-Wharfedale Scott Thwaites finished eighth in the four-stage men's race.

Thwaite's eighth place, which was 28 seconds behind winner Chris Lawless, is the highest finish by a Yorkshireman in the short history of the Tour de Yorkshire.

After Sunday's final stage, Thwaites tweeted: "It might not be a win but it’s close enough.... Yorkshire and proud.

"Thanks for the incredible support on the roads today. It definitely gave me a boost to get over all the hills."

The Tour de Yorkshire was only Deignan's fourth race back since the birth of baby daughter Orla in September, and her first multi-stage event.

"I felt really, really empty," said the 30-year-old former world champion Deignan, who won the most active rider jersey following her ride on Saturday.

"I've been struggling a bit with my appetite trying to get enough calories in," said Deignan. "That has been a problem for the last couple of days and I paid for that today."

Marianne Vos added the Women's Tour de Yorkshire to her long list of accolades as victory on stage two in Scarborough gave her the overall win on Saturday.

The Dutchwoman out-sprinted Spaniard Mavi Garcia and Soraya Paladin into a howling headwind at the end of a 132km stage from Bridlington raced in brutal conditions.

The win was enough for Vos to secure the overall win by a margin of seven seconds from Garcia, with the general classification almost entirely decided by Saturday's stage after Friday's sprint finish in Bedale.

Riders waited until the last possible moment to take the start-line in Bridlington in frigid temperatures, before facing headwinds of up to 40mph which blew rain, hail and even sleet in their faces while they traversed a route that included 1,850m of climbing through the North Yorkshire Moors.

"It was a crazy day," Vos said. "There were a lot of climbs and many attacks.

"We had to endure a lot and I actually don't know how I ended up in the front in the end. It's a great win."

Canyon-SRAM's Hannah Barnes came home in eighth to be the best-placed Brit in the race, but Trek-Segafredo's Deignan missed the key move with 50km to go and finished further back having chased down an earlier attack from reigning world champion Anna van der Breggen of Boels-Dolmans.

"I was just so empty at that point," Deignan said. "I can take away that I was there when I needed to be on the climbs but I was just completely blocked in the crosswinds and I'd kind of burned my matches trying to follow Anna.

"Tactically I didn't ride well, I didn't use energy in the right places but when you're on the limit you don't, you're not thinking clearly."

It proved a stressful day for everyone, as the riders were battered by some horrible weather.

"It was really bad," said Sheffield's Lizzy Banks, who tried in vain to defend the Queen of the Mountains jersey for Bigla.

"When we came down into Robin Hood's Bay we were going down the hill at 50mph and we had 40mph hail coming into our face.

"You couldn't see a thing. It was incredibly painful, you could barely see where you were going."