Tour of Britain cycling: Blackpool finish is gold for Mark Cavendish

By NICK FREESTONE
Published on 13/09/2012 03:28

MARK Cavendish claimed the leader’s gold jersey in the Tour of Britain yesterday after winning a sprint finish in Blackpool to take his second consecutive stage victory.

The 2011 world road race champion started the day with the same time as overnight leader Leigh Howard of Orica-GreenEDGE but made sure of his second stage win thanks to a strong lead out by Team Sky colleagues Bradley Wiggins and Luke Rowe.

The time bonus for winning the stage saw Cavendish open up a six-second lead over Howard in the general classification and take control of the gold jersey.

A small breakaway group led the way for the majority of the 156-kilometre route from Carlisle but they were chased down by the peloton in the closing stages, with Team Sky powering up the Promenade to propel the Manx Missile to the line at the foot of Blackpool tower.

The breakaway quickly formed at the start of the route and opened up a six-minute gap on the peloton, with UK Youth Cycling’s Niklas Gustavsson picking up the bonus points at the first intermediate sprint at Shap ahead of Mathew Cronshaw of Node 4 and An Post’s Ronan McLaughlin.

Rapha Condor’s Kristian House, IG’s Dan Craven and Saur Sojasun’s David Lelay were also part of the six-man leading group who set the early pace.

However, the chasing peloton hit back and the leaders saw their gap slashed to three minutes.

The breakaway was then reduced to four as the course wound its way towards the seaside town, with Gustavsson and House dropped after the last King of the Mountains points dash, as ORICA-GreenEDGE and Team Sky led the chase. Tour de France winner Wiggins stepped up the pace at the front of the peloton with 24km to go as stiff cross winds began to wreak havoc, with the increased speed causing the main pack to fracture.

Cavendish and Howard positioned themselves well and were part of the large chasing group, who slashed the gap to the leaders to 30 seconds with 15km 
remaining.

Ireland’s McLaughlin then made a late bid to go it alone but he has hauled back by Craven before the Team Sky-led pack hunted them down with just under 10km to go.

It set the stage perfectly for another sprint to the line for Cavendish, who crossed with ease, in what could prove to be a decisive win.

The Tour of Britain continues with today’s 147km stage around Stoke-on-Trent.

Following his victory in Lancashire, the Manxman hailed Wiggins as the mastermind behind the team’s success in the testing conditions.

Cavendish said: “Bradley lives not far from Blackpool and the route included a lot of the roads he uses for training.

“He told us it was very open, and very windy, and he knew the exact place we should go on the attack. It was the perfect call. It was a grim day but we ploughed through and waited until that moment 22km from home to split things apart and, although it was difficult to do that with a small team, the fact Endura were riding as well made it easier.

“On those last 5km along the front we just made it so fast that nobody else could get close to us.

“We’d expected a crosswind, but in the end it felt like a tailwind, and we were flying.

“Luke [Rowe] is going for the overall so we tried to let him get a bit of a gap like the other day, but then Leigh Howard jumped so I had to go with him, and then it was quite straightforward for me in the sprint.”