TOURISM bosses say Tendring was the real winner of this summer’s Aviva Women’s Tour cycle race.

New figures show more than 350,000 television viewers tuned in to watch stage two of the five-day event, which finished on Clacton seafront.

Thousands of bike fans lined the route for the gruelling 138km race, which attracted the world’s best female cyclists, on June 18.

A full report on the event is due to be released later in the year, but Tendring Council said it has had sight of some early information.

It said the average reach for the stage two highlights – screened on ITV4 – was 354,000.

It was the highest viewing figures of the five highlights programmes the channel broadcast during the race.

Mick Skeels, Tendring Council’s cabinet member for leisure, said: “We knew from the reaction around the district and by the number of people who turned out along the route – something which was commented on by the competitors – that it was a real winner here.

“Now we have learned that we had the best viewing figures on ITV4, it shows that hundreds of thousands of people enjoyed it as well.”

Mr Skeels added that independent consultants calculated the 2014 Women’s Tour brought in an extra £600,000 to the local economy and it is likely to be a similar story again this year.

“How often do we get the chance to see a host of world, Olympic, European and national champions taking to the roads of Tendring?” he said.

“Not only that, but viewers around the world saw and read about it happening in Tendring too.”

He added that for Tendring Council, whichwas a stage sponsor, the race was about raising the profile of the district and putting it on the worldwide sporting map.

Stage two, whichmade its way from Braintree to Clacton, was the second-longest stage in this year’s race.

It was won by Belgium’s Jolien D’Hoore, closely followed by German rider Lisa Brennauer and Christine Majerus of Luxembourg in third.