UK Edition
Patrick Bevin in pole position as Tour of Britain moves on to Lake District
The OVO Energy Tour of Britain heads northwards to the Lake District tomorrow for the first of two hilly stages which are almost certain to decide the race.
First up an intriguing team time trial, which will finish up Whinlatter Pass just west of Keswick. With the top 10 on general classification separated by little more than 20 seconds, the big-hitting World Tour teams such as Team Sky, BMC Racing, QuickStep-Floors and Mitchelton-Scott will all have high hopes of putting their GC riders into the race leader’s green jersey.
Patrick Bevin [BMC] is the current race leader and therefore in pole position. The Kiwi rider holds a slender four-second advantage over Australian Cameron Meyer [Mitchelton-Scott] after picking up exactly that amount in bonus seconds on Wednesday courtesy of an impressive third-place finish in the final sprint into Royal Leamington Spa won by Andre Greipel [Lotto-Soudal].
Julian Alaphilippe [QuickStep-Floors] is a further two seconds further behind Meyer, with Wout Poels [Sky] and Primoz Roglic [TeamLottoNL-Jumbo] both still major threats to the overall at 16 seconds.
Such slender margins can easily evaporate in a team time trial, albeit one that is only 14km long. The final 5km of Thursday’s TTT are uphill and while they only average four per cent in terms of gradient, they will test the teams’ bike set-ups and ability to stay together. The team’s time will be taken on the fourth rider over the line.
The battle for the general classification will then return to Whinlatter on Friday for the race’s queen stage, a 168.3km effort which will tackle the same mountain twice from the the opposite, tougher, direction to stage five.
Out in Spain, Briton Simon Yates [Mitchelton-Scott] retained his one-second lead at the Vuelta a Espana after stage 11 was won from a breakaway by Alessandro de Marchi [BMC].
Yates finished alongside the remaining race favourites just over two minutes behind De Marchi, who proved the strongest member of a 19-strong bunch that got away midway through the 207.8km race from Mombuey to Luintra.
Meanwhile, Bahrain-Merida rider Kanstantsin Siutsou has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for banned blood booster EPO.
The Belarusian, who rode for Team Sky for three years between 2012 and 2015, returned an adverse analytical finding in an out of competition test on July 31. The 36 year-old has the right to request a B-sample.
Siutsou was told in June that his contract, which expires on 31 December, would not be renewed.
Bahrain-Merida general manager Brent Copeland said: "This news is terribly disappointing. We are very severe with any wrongdoing with regards to our internal health code."