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The world's top cyclists will line-up in Anglesey this weekend for the start of the Aviva Tour of Britain, the UK's biggest professional cycle race, which starts its eight day Tour from Beaumaris on Sunday 6 September.
Headlining the 120-rider rider list is a trio of former winners, including UCI Hour Record holder Sir Bradley Wiggins, who triumphed in his home Tour in 2013, defending champion Dylan Van Baarle of Team Cannondale Garmin and 2009 winner Edvald Boasson Hagen of the MTN Qhubeka team. "It was a really big win for me and still the best result of my career,” recalls Van Baarle, who will wear the number one on Sunday. "The victory earned a lot of coverage at home. Not only was the race watched quite a bit on the TV but the fact that I ended up ahead of big name riders like Kwiatkowski and Wiggins attracted extra attention. Off the back of that result I earned a place in the Netherlands team for the World Championships so I have nothing but good memories of the 2014 Tour of Britain.” Eleven of the riders have previously won stages in the Aviva Tour of Britain, taking a total of 30 victories in British Cycling's premier road cycling event. Former British and World Champion Mark Cavendish leads the way with 10 stage wins in his home tour. "It's always something special to ride in front of your national crowd,” said Etixx Quick-Step rider Mark Cavendish. "It's already my 8th time at the race and year-by-year I can see how cycling is growing in this nation. We are at the start to try to be successful as we were last year. We have a strong team and we are ready to race.” Alongside Cavendish will be triple World Cyclo-Cross Champion Zdenek Stybar, who won Stage Six of the Tour de France this Summer. "This is the first time that I ride this race. I'm pretty curious about it,” said Stybar. "My teammates told me that it's a tough race, without a metre of flat road, designed in great scenarios. "The atmosphere will be great, I'm sure. I have never raced on the road in United Kingdom, but I remember the great images of the Olympics and the Grand Depart of the Tour de France last year. It will be nice to be part of this race.” Stybar's Etixx Quick-Step teammate Matteo Trentin is also a double stage winner in the Tour de France, while Australian Mark Renshaw has won Tour of Britain stages in Exmouth, and most recently in 2014, Llandundo. Another former stage winner returning to the race is sprinter Andre Greipel, who took a hat trick of wins on his only previous appearance in 2010. The Lotto Soudal rider won four stages of the Tour de France this Summer, and now turns his attention to the Aviva Tour of Britain. "I am looking for a very tough intense block of racing - but not too long - and the Tour of Britain works perfectly for me," says Greipel. "I am interested in the World Championships and we have a strong German team with good possibilities for a number of riders so I was thinking how to prepare best. "I remember it as a hard race in 2010 and talking to other riders it seems the Tour of Britain has become an even harder race since then, which I welcome. Well this year anyway! The guys say that last year almost every day felt like a Classics day and that is probably what you need before a World Championships. A lot of riders seemed to come out of the Tour of Britain in very good form last year for the Worlds. "Hopefully there will be a couple of sprint stages but good hard racing and riding is what I look forward to most of all. I see there are three stages well over 200km which is pretty tough in an eight day race so that is excellent preparation for Richmond.” Riders from 24 different countries populate the provisional rider list, with Great Britain the best represented nation with 44 riders, including reigning British Road Race Champion Peter Kennaugh of Team Sky. "I'm excited to be making my Tour of Britain debut because this is our national stage race," says Kennaugh. "I've watched it on the TV and seen it grow but to be honest I'm pretty uncertain about my form. "There is no substitute for racing miles in the legs and from what I've seen the Tour of Britain its ridden pretty full gas right from the start so it's not as if might get a chance to ease myself back in like you might get on a Grand Tour. "When I look at the route my gut feeling is that it is the sort of race that should suit me if I was in top form with lots of mixed terrain days, one summit finish and there is no TT but realistically I think I will be riding for Ben Swift who is probably our best bet for GC although you don't rule anybody out really.” Teammate Ben Swift won a stage of the race in 2009 and wore the Chain Reaction Cycles Points Jersey during the 2014 Tour. "It has become one of the stand-out races in the cycling calendar. It's a very special feeling to race in front of your home fans and see the fantastic support that we get every year. Cycling has never been more popular in the UK and the crowds at the Tour of Britain get bigger with each edition of the race, which is great to see. "This will be my seventh appearance at this race and I know just how tough the British roads can be, but we have a strong team and we'll certainly be challenging for stage wins and the overall GC." Another British contender for overall victory is Movistar Team's Alex Dowsett, who led the race in 2014 after a memorable breakaway on Stage Six. "I'm delighted it's coming back to East Anglia (Stage Six on Saturday 12 September) and you just know even before its starts that it will be another manically ridden race. "With that big summit finish on Hartside on Day Five the GC might be out of range this year so I might have to target one or two stages but let's not ride the race before it started. Anything can happen in the Tour of Britain and often does. There are frequent and quite unexpected shifts in the GC picture as we saw last year.” A strong Great Britain cycling team includes Tao Geoghegan Hart and Hugh Carty, who recently finished one-two in the Best Young Rider Classification at the USA Pro Challenge. Six British domestic teams are among the 20 teams taking part, including Pearl Izumi Tour Series Champions Madison Genesis, led by last year's SKODA King of the Mountains winner Mark McNally, and Team Raleigh GAC, who include 2015 British Cycling Elite Road Series winner Steve Lampier. Among the debutants for the 2015 Aviva Tour of Britain are BMC Pro Cycling's Taylor Phinney, who was fourth in the 2012 Olympic Games Road Race on his last appearance in the UK, Moreno Hofland of Lotto NL Jumbo, who is already a winner in the UK this year at the Tour de Yorkshire, and teammate Steven Kruijswijk, a top ten finisher in the Giro d'Italia this Summer, who rode his first ever international race as a junior in Wales in 2004. Team Raleigh GAC boast the oldest rider in the race, with Cumbria's Andy Hawdon about to make his Aviva Tour of Britain debut at the age of 39-years and 122-days, while another debutant, NFTO's Eddie Dunbar of Ireland, will be the youngest competitor at just 19-years and 12-days. The final 120-rider list for the 2015 Aviva Tour of Britain will be confirmed late afternoon on Saturday 5 September ahead of the team presentation event at Parc Eirias, in Colwyn Bay. Coverage of Sunday's Stage One, a 177-kilometre leg from Beaumaris on Anglesey to Wrexham, will be shown live on ITV from 1pm, with highlights on ITV4 at 10pm. The further seven stages will all be shown live on ITV4 with an hours highlights each evening on the same channel. Subsequent stages take the race to Lancashire and Cumbria, before two stages in the south of Scotland, a first visit to Northumberland since the 2009 race and a summit finish atop the eight-kilometre climb of Hartside in the Cumbria Pennines. The final stages take the race from Stoke-on-Trent to Nottingham through the Peak District and Fakenham to Ipswich in East Anglia, before the Aviva Tour of Britain concludes in central London with a 14-lap circuit race finishing on Regent Street St James. The Aviva Tour of Britain is British Cycling's premier road cycling event giving cycling fans the opportunity to see the world's best teams and riders competing on their door step. |
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Stage One Sunday 6 September Beaumaris, Anglesey to Wrexham, 177.7km Stage Two Monday 7 September Clitheroe to Colne, 159.3km Stage Three Tuesday 8 September Cockermouth to Floors Castle, Kelso, 216km Stage Four Wednesday 9 September Edinburgh to Blyth, 217.4km Stage Five Thursday 10 September Prudhoe to Hartside, 166.2km Stage Six Friday 11 September Stoke-on-Trent to Nottingham, 192.8km Stage Seven Saturday 12 September Fakenham to Ipswich, 227.4km Stage Eight Sunday 13 September London stage presented by TfL, 86.8km The full list of 20 teams for the Aviva Tour of Britain is as follows: An Post Chain Reaction (Ireland); BMC Racing (USA); Cult Energy Pro Cycling (Denmark); Etixx Quick-Step (Belgium); Great Britain national team; IAM Cycling (Switzerland); Lotto Soudal (Belgium); JLT Condor presented by Mavic (Great Britain); Madison Genesis (Great Britain); Movistar Team (Spain); MTN Qhubeka (South Africa); NFTO (Great Britain); ONE Pro Cycling (Great Britain); Team Cannondale – Garmin (USA); Team Lotto NL Jumbo (Netherlands); Team Novo Nordisk (USA); Team Raleigh – GAC (Great Britain); Team Sky (Great Britain); Team WIGGINS (Great Britain); Tinkoff – Saxo (Russia) |