One week before the Elite road race at the world road race championships, Mark Cavendish showed his sprinting form is strong with a final-stage triumph in the Tour of Britain. The HTC Highroad competitor galloped home ahead of team-mate Mark Renshaw, repeating the one-two they achieved on day one of the race.
Overnight leader Lars Boom had reinforced his advantage with a second place finish in this morning’s time trial, finishing five seconds behind Alex Dowsett (Sky Procycling), and had no problems in the concluding circuit race in London. He finished safely in the main bunch to be crowned winner of the 2011 event.
The final stage took place over ten laps of a flat, fast 8.8 kilometre circuit in London. Irish rider Ronan McLaughlin (An Post Grant Thornton M. Donnelly Sean Kelly) jumped clear right at the start and was joined soon afterwards by former British champion Kristian House (Rapha Condor Sharp).
The two rode strongly together and fended off the chase behind for much of the stage. McLaughlin attacked and pushed on ahead coming towards the end of the penultimate lap, but House caught and passed him to begin the final 8.8 kilometre lap alone.
The sprinters teams were pulling hard, though, and succeeded in bringing him back before the gallop. There, Cavendish and Renshaw showed their speed yet again, ending the race as they started it and notching up yet another success for the HTC Highroad team.
It was win number 507 for the combined men’s and women’s teams, the victory adding to the final stage win in the Giro della Toscana clocked up earlier this afternoon by Charlotte Becker. However, as Cavendish said afterwards, he wasn’t at all sure he’d take it.
“I didn’t want to take too many risks today with the Worlds coming up. It was a wet finish and I saw (Ben) Swift lose his wheel on the second last corner so I backed off on the last corner and ended up 20 metres behind coming out of it,” he explained. “I thought it was too far back to get it but I went for it anyway and I came through on the line.
“It’s been really good to come away with three stage wins this week, can’t get much better. Not only that we go three first and second placings which is superb.”
He said that he was impressed by how much the race had grown since he last rode it in 2007. He enjoyed the experience, and also thought it was just what he needed prior to next Sunday’s world road race championships. “It’s been perfect preparation for me for next week,” he said. “The Vuelta looked too hard with too many crashes. I was able to control my training and I won two stages, which was good.”
His directeur sportif Allan Peiper explained how things played out towards the end. “Rabobank was doing a lot of the work at the front today, and Team Sky was also controlling. But by the last kilometer Renshaw and Eisel were on top of it, and dropped Cav off in the usual fashion for the last time,” he said.
“It was a spectacular finish for Cav in his home country, as well as for the team to finish a long tour on a high note.”
Renshaw announced afterwards that his season was at an end, the Australian controversially having been overlooked by the Australian selectors. Cavendish is very much going to Copenhagen, though, where he will attempt to become the first Briton to win the race since Tom Simpson in 1965.
Boom delighted to win overall:
Lars Boom wasn’t perhaps the most obvious of contenders, with many tipping the HTC and Sky teams before the race start. However he won stage three and grabbed the leader’s jersey from Cavendish, then defended all the way to the end.
He clearly enjoyed his time at the race. “It was awesome. London is a very nice city. It’s a lovely country, I didn’t expect that,” he said. “The public was awesome, a lot of cheering so it was a great week for us.
“My most memorable moment was the first stage, the circuit, the small roads, the rain – it was awesome. I wanted to win this morning, I felt confident on the halfway so I lost a little bit.”
He credited the Rabobank squad as being an important part of his success. “Our team was very good this week, I was confident with them behind me so there was no problem,” he said. “It’s different riding with six guys in the team. You see that HTC – Highroad are a bit less strong than normally, maybe. We had a really good team with the guys who were here and I was feeling confident everyday.”
Sky Procycling’s Steve Cummings also had reason to be pleased with how things turned out, even if he would have preferred to have been one step higher on the podium.
“It’s a good result,” he said. “Obviously with it being our home race it would be good if we could have won. We didn’t really have a lot of good luck throughout the race. I crashed, G (Geraint Thomas) crashed and then we came up against a really strong rider in Lars Boom on that terrain. But overall it’s pretty good.
“Today was great. It was a fantastic result from Alex. That was really special and obviously G got the points jersey today because he didn’t half have a bad crash. To get up and still do that was a great achievement.”
McLaughlin and House animate final stage:
As his compatriot and then-team-mate Matt Brammeier did on last year’s final stage, Irishman Ronan McLaughlin attacked immediately after the drop of the flag and opened a good gap. He quickly gained 17 seconds on the main field, although the gap fell to ten seconds when the peloton accelerated. This enabled Kristian House (Rapha Condor Sharp) to jump across and, working well together, the duo started to pull clear.
McLaughlin took the first Yodel bonus sprint at the end of lap two, with House next and the An Post rider’s team-mate Gediminas Bagdonas netting third behind; Rene Mandri (Endura Racing) was trying to bridge alone but was unable to do so. One lap later, the leading duo’s advantage had grown to 33 seasons over the HTC Highroad-led peloton.
The Yodel sprint at the end of lap six again went to McLaughlin ahead of House, while back in the peloton Jan Barta nabbed third and moved further ahead of Linus Gerdemann (Leopard Trek) in the general classification, securing third overall. McLaughlin then took the final intermediate sprint on lap 8. Behind, Lars Boom’s Rabobank team were chasing hard and starting to bring down the gap.
The rain started falling and this gave a sliver of hope to the breakaway, which hoped that the worsening weather would dissuade the chase. McLaughlin clipped away towards the end of lap nine, seeking to emulate his team-mate Bagdonas yesterday and pick up another stage win for the An Post team. House had something left, though, and caught and passed him prior to the start of the final lap.
The Rapha Condor Sharp rider pushed hard to try to stave off the speeding peloton but was finally overhauled inside the final few minutes of the stage. More attacks followed but the sprinters’ teams were not giving any quarter and things came down to a mass gallop to the line.
There the well-drilled HTC Highroad team did their stuff, with Cavendish and Renshaw thundering home ahead of Robert Förster (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling) plus the rest.
Boom finished in the pack, winning the race overall, while Jonathan Tiernan Locke (Rapha Condor Sharp) and Pieter Ghyllebert (An Post Grant Thornton M. Donnelly Sean Kelly) took the mountains and sprints jersey respectively.
“It was a wonderful week for me and the whole team,” said the latter. “I loved the beautiful stages we did. Almost every day we were involved in the break so for the whole team it’s fantastic. It was a bit of a tough start with the weather but other than that it was very nice.”
Geraint Thomas’ strong fourth place earned him victory in the points classification. He had hoped to fight for the yellow jersey, but had to be content with netting top result in that competition.
“We wanted to win the race and crashing on stage six didn’t help, and with Lars (Boom) sprinting so well we were always up against it,” he said. “After a fifth this morning, when I moved ahead of Cavendish, we thought we may as well go for it and try and get on the podium. Fortunately we did and the lads did a great job. (Ben) Swift took me to the line. I had to get fifth if Cav won and fortunately I got fourth.
“A lot of ups and downs this week, quite literally as well. Every day we got stuck in and attacked the race. We learned a lot from last year and definitely improved from there. With only a couple of pro tour teams here everyone looks to us to control the race and make it hard so we’re making no excuses and I think we did well. Hopefully we can come back next year and win that gold jersey.”