11 September 2016, London (GBR)
The Tour of Britain wrapped up in London today with Taylor Phinney on the attack as part of the breakaway before Rohan Dennis finished safely behind the bunch sprint to secure his podium position on the General Classification.
A traditionally fast and exciting stage, Tour of Britain Stage 8 did not disappoint as the high speed circuit through London saw attacks fly off the front of the peloton as soon as the race hit KM 0.
Taylor Phinney was part of a four-rider breakaway that went clear on the first of sixteen 6.2km laps around the British capital and the group was able to extend their lead to a maximum of 50 seconds over the course of the race.
As they started their penultimate lap the peloton had the group within their sights and despite a final a burst of acceleration from Phinney the peloton was back together and heading for the previously predicted bunch sprint.
With a series of technical corners to tackle before the finishing straight, one rider went clear at the front of the race before the bunch charged towards the line with Caleb Ewan (Orica – BikeExchange) taking the win.
Dennis finished safely in the main bunch to cap off a strong week of racing in Britain with second overall on the General Classification, 26 seconds behind Steve Cummings (Team Dimension Data).
Quotes from the Finish Line
Rohan Dennis:
“It’s been a hard race, a really hard race actually but I am pretty happy with how I have raced and the form I have shown this week. In hindsight I probably lost the race on Stage 2 but in saying that if I didn’t attack up The Struggle I wouldn’t have been as confident on the other climbs throughout the week and maybe I wouldn’t have attacked on Haytor or in Bristol. For me, you can either play the defensive game and possibly win or you can go on the offensive and risk more but if you pull it off it feels more special.”
“I still have a few more races coming up this season including the Eneco Tour and the World TTT Championships, if it goes ahead, which are both different types of races to this one but this week we have seen really aggressive and unpredictable racing so it has been a good test and I think it has shown the good form that I am in.”
Jackson Stewart:
“We did a lot of work all week but we still felt like we wanted to take some risks, some chances and really just race our bikes today. It’s not often you get to race in the centre of a city like London so we were motivated to ride aggressively as we have tried to do all week and you never know unless you try. We tried a little bit, or a big bit in Phinney’s case, as well as protecting Rohan so it was a good way to really end our week.”
“Overall, it has been a good week for us. We came here thinking we would do our best on the GC and try for a stage and we achieved both of those goals plus some. It was nice to see Amaël Moinard also have a good stage and everyone made some good efforts and that is what I like to see. We came here with a strong rider for the GC but we were also able to target some other goals at the same time and give everyone the opportunity to try something.”
Race profile
Tour of Britain
Stage 8: London – London, 99.2km
Top 3: 1. Caleb Ewan (Orica – BikeExchange) 2. Dylan Groenewegen (Team Lotto NL – Jumbo) 3. Jens Debusschere (Lotto-Soudal)
BMC Racing Team Top 3: 14. Rick Zabel 37. Rohan Dennis 42. Amaël Moinard
BMC Racing Team Top 3 on GC: 2. Rohan Dennis 28. Amaël Moinard 31. Loïc Vliegen
