Paul Magnier soared to the win on the first stage of the Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men, with a scintillating sprint finish victory for the 20-year-old Soudal Quick-Step rider in Kelso.
With the stage starting and finishing in the Scottish Border town of Kelso, the riders tackled an undulating 181.9km course with 1,885m of climbing and three categorised climbs - two of which were scaled twice.
An exciting start saw a flurry of attacks from the off, with riders from TRINITY Racing and the Great Britain Cycling Team quick to assert dominance at the front of the race.
Peebles resident Callum Thornley (TRINITY Racing) and Julius Johansen (Sabgal/Anicolor) made the first significant move of the day, before being shortly joined by Callum Ormiston (Global 6 United) inside the first 20km. The trio racked up a lead of three and a half minutes, before facing the first categorised climb of the day with Scott’s View at 64.4km in.
At 2.2km in length and an average of 2.9%, Thornley beat Ormiston to the first King of the Mountains win of the race, with the gap to the peloton at 3:17.
Shortly after, the first intermediate sprint through Melrose saw Johansen get the better of the three to take the win ahead of Thornley, before summiting the second climb of the day to Dingleton.
The second-category climb, averaging 6.1%, saw Thornley take maximum points once again in a battle against Ormiston. The gap to the peloton reduced to 1:50 as Gianni Moscon (Soudal Quick-Step) continued to work alongside teammate and double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel.
Inside the final 100km, Thornley once again led the break up the third categorised climb, Dunion Hill, securing his third and final King of the Mountain win of the day to take the overall jersey into tomorrow’s stage.
A super fast descent with 75km to go saw Ormiston drop backwards to leave Thornley and Johansen out front, with the pair having a 1:35 advantage over the chasing peloton as Soudal Quick-Step continued to lead the charge.
Coming back through Kelso with 55km to go, the riders raced to the line for the second intermediate sprint of the day. Johansen picked up three seconds and the sprint win, while Ben Turner (INEOS Grenadiers) surged for the line from the peloton to take third.
With just 39km remaining, INEOS Grenadiers began to bring it back, hitting the front ferociously and forcing five riders to go clear. Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step) counter-attacked, before Evenepoel went hard from the peloton as it all began to heat up.
As Thornley took another King of the Mountains win up Scott’s View, the gap to the peloton was reduced to 56 seconds. The pressure from the attacks in the peloton saw the race splinter, with a chasing group determined to keep on the pace.
Happy with his day's effort, Thornley sat up, leaving Johansen to battle on alone with 30km remaining as another flurry of attacks kicked in 32 seconds back.
Johansen clung on to take another intermediate sprint, before being swallowed up by a storming peloton, led by INEOS Grenadiers, Uno-X Mobility and Bahrain Victorious.
Coming up Dingleton for the final climb of the day, Alaphilippe attacked at the foot, with Kelso local Oscar Onley (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) following. Matt Holmes (Great Britain Cycling Team) soon took to the front, with Onley and Joe Blackmore (Israel - Premier Tech) close behind with 24km to go.
A flurry of attacks ensued, with Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious), Evenepoel and Turner all having a go, but nothing was able to stick as the road flattened out with 20km remaining.
INEOS Grenadiers continued to storm at the front with Tobias Foss doing most of the leg work, before Baptiste Veistroffer (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale DT) attacked inside the final 7km.
Foss continued to work for INEOS Grenadiers as Soudal Quick-Step came through with 2.8km to go, swallowing up the lone French rider.
Turner and Evenepoel took to the front to lead out the two teams, with British champion Ethan Hayter (INEOS Grenadiers) on his teammates' wheel, but a sharp final bend saw Hayter pushed wide and out of contention.
A sprint to the line saw Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step) fire to the victory as Ethan Vernon (Israel - Premier Tech) soared to second, while young rider Bob Donaldson (TRINITY Racing) secured third.
Magnier’s win - his sixth of the year - saw him take the leader’s jersey and the best young rider jersey, which will be worn by Donaldson tomorrow. With all the intermediate sprint wins under his belt, Johansen is top of the points classification. Thornley secured the King of the Mountains jersey with his climbing prowess, which also saw him awarded the Combativity award.
Speaking after the stage, Magnier said:
“I’m really happy to take the victory for the team today. Incredible - we did an amazing team performance today. We tried Remco [Evenepoel] and Julian [Alaphilippe] on the climb but it was really hard so in the end, they tried for me in the bunch race. They give you wings when such big riders are working for you.”
Scottish rider Thornley added:
“It’s pretty special to do that on home roads. That was my plan at the start of the race - to get in the breakaway - and to make it happen is pretty special.
“Early on, [Johansen] asked me what I wanted out of the stage and I said I wanted the KoM points. I said if he wanted, we could work together and he could get the sprint and I could get the KoM points so it was a good little duo.
“It was good seeing all the Scottish flags up there. I’ll have to try and get in the breakaway again and get as many points as I can. The goal will be to defend it, there’s going to be some hard days out, we’ll see what we can do.”
Stage two on Wednesday 4 September takes place in the Tees Valley and North Yorkshire with a 152.1-kilometre leg from Darlington to Redcar, crossing the climbs of the North York Moors National Park. The stage begins at 11am, with live coverage on ITV4 from 10:45am.
