Paul Magnier stormed to a second stage win at the Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men as the riders tackled 138 kilometres across the East Midlands from Derby to Newark-on-Trent.
Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step) emulated his win in the opening stage of the tour with another powerful sprint victory, as Ethan Vernon (Israel - Premier Tech) once again came home in second place on a fast and flat stage, with his teammate Stevie Williams continuing to hold his 16 second overall lead.
As the racing began outside of the Derby Arena, the peloton saw a flurry of attacks, before Ben Swift (INEOS Grenadiers) struck out alone with 128km to go.
Swift quickly gained over 40 seconds on the main group before he was joined by Rowan Baker (Saint Piran), Liam O’Brien (Lidl-Trek Future Racing) and Scott McGill (Project Echelon Racing), forming a quartet that the peloton, led by Israel - Premier Tech and Soudal Quick-Step, seemed happy to allow up the road.
As the breakaway’s advantage stretched to over 2:30 minutes, Swift became the virtual leader of the race on the road, before the Yorkshireman sat up to help his teammates in the peloton with 114km remaining.
The team of race leader Williams, along with Soudal Quick-Step - who were working for stage one victor Magnier - took turns sharing chase duties, holding the remaining trio of riders ahead of them between 1:30 and 1:45 minutes.
The peloton were reeling in the stage leaders all the time and with just over 30km left, the gap stood at 17 seconds. However, O’Brien launched an attack and made it stick, pushing the gap back out to 38 seconds, leaving his two compatriots to try and fend off the bunch who continued to close in on the pair.
The Irishman managed to hold on to take maximum points at the intermediate sprint at Collingham, where Jelte Krijnsen (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) took second and teammate Mark Donovan sealed the last remaining bonus second for third place.
The catch was finally made shortly afterwards, which led to attacks flying off the front of the peloton for the following few kilometres, all of which were marked and chased down by double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step).
Ethan Hayter (INEOS Grenadiers) launched what appeared to be a dangerous move with just 10km to go, but once again, Evenepoel shut down the attack to ensure a sprint finish for his teammate Magnier.
The narrow streets of Newark-on-Trent lent themselves to a tense finish as the leadout trains spread across the road, with Uno-X Mobility taking control with two kilometres to go. Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step) produced a wonderful leadout for Magnier, dragging the Frenchman to within 200m to go, before Vernon launched his own sprint on the left in an attempt to catch the Soudal man out.
The Brit’s efforts proved fruitless however as Magnier looked untouchable as he powered to convincingly seal his second stage win of the race, with Vernon following him home, narrowly beating Erlend Blikra (Uno-X Mobility).
Williams retains the leaders jersey as he maintains his 16 second advantage over Oscar Onley, who remains in the white young riders jersey, with fellow Brit Donovan in third, now at 40 seconds in arrears after his intermediate sprint time bonus.
Magnier now leads the points classification outright, after wearing the red jersey today in place of previous points leader Williams. No King of the Mountains climbs on the East Midlands leg mean that Callum Thornley’s (TRINITY Racing) lead in that competition is unchanged, and he will wear the blue jersey for a fifth straight stage, now only needing to finish the race to win the classification. Baker’s early break efforts for Saint Piran saw him awarded the combativity award for the day.
Speaking after the stage, Magnier said: “It's been very nice - we put in a strong team performance today. I want to thank Martin Svrček in the headwind all day and then all my other teammates worked to make it into a bunch race and keep me in the front which helped me to save my legs for the last few hundred metres. I did a really nice sprint so I can thank my team. I'm really happy to take the victory today.
“Tomorrow I hope it will again be a bunch sprint and we will try and go again for the victory. I'm really proud to be a part of a team like this - they did an amazing job, they're super strong and they gave me wings. It's nice to see a lot of people here - it gives us motivation.”
Race leader Williams, who finished 26th in Newark-on-Trent added: “It was tough going again today. The last 10k was incredibly fast. There was a lot of jumping, a lot of moving around so I'm really happy to keep hold of the jersey.”
The penultimate stage of the Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men is in West Northamptonshire on Saturday 7 September, starting from the University of Northampton’s Waterside Campus at 11am, and finishing on Derngate in Northampton town centre after 149.6 kilometres of racing. Live coverage on ITV4 begins at 10.45am.
