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Balsamo triumphed in a bunch sprint to deny Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) her third straight stage win, while Australian Chloe Hosking collected her third trip to the podium for the week with a third-place finish.
“To win in this jersey is amazing – it was the perfect day,” Balsamo said.
“My team did a really great lead-out for me.
“We knew we were strong in the sprints but today was perfect. It’s wonderful. This was my first time at this race but I will definitely come here again!”
Vollering (SD Worx) finished safely among the main group to stretch her lead to more than a minute ahead of her closest general classification rival and secure the blue winners' jersey.
The win is Vollering’s first UCI Women’s WorldTour stage race victory and comes at the end of a season in which she also triumphed in the prestigious Liege-Bastogne-Liege and La Course by Tour de France one-day races.
“It feels great – it’s really nice to win a stage race for the first time,”Vollering said.
“I won the race in the time trial. I made a big gap and that made all of it easier for us.
The last three days were flat so we tried to sprint for Amy Pieters. We only needed to control it.”
Vollering finished one minute and two seconds of Juliette Labous, of Team DSM, in the overall standings while Clara Copponi, of FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope, finished third.
The day was marked by a five-rider escape that was started by Eugenia Bujak (Alé BTC Ljubljana), who attacked a little over an hour into the stage. She was eventually joined by Ana Santesteban (Team BikeExchange), Dani Christmas (Drops Le Col s/b TEMPUR), Sofia Bertizzolo (Liv Racing), and Veronica Ewers (Team TIBCO – Silicon Valley Bank).
The quintet built a lead of just over three minutes, making Santesteban the virtual leader on the road for a short period, but a combination of Vollering’s SD Worx’s squad and the other teams working towards a sprint pulled things back to set up a fast finish into Felixstowe.
Once again the Valcar – Travel & Service team delivered an excellent lead-out for Balsamo, who placed second in Friday’s stage to Clacton-on-Sea.
However, this time the world champion was able to make good of her teammates’ work and round out her Women’s Tour debut with a win.
Two-time stage winner Wiebes took second to secure the points jersey, with Hosking taking her third top-three finish of the week behind.
31-year-old Commonwealth road race champion Hosking, who's making a successful comeback after missing five months with health issues, ended up finishing second in the points competition at the week-long tour around Britain.
Aussie compatriot Sarah Roy (Team BikeExchange) finished stage six in sixth place to secure 15th in the GC rankings.
Other Australians Nicole Frain (Team TIBCO - Silicon Valley Bank) was 42nd on Stage six, while Jess Allen (Team BikeExchange) 63rd.
