It was a case of 'close but no cigar' on two counts for plucky Brit Oliver Stockwell on stage two of the Tour of the Alps. The instigator of the day's early break, the Bahrain Victorious rider lasted out front until halfway up the steep final climb to Martell before finally admitting defeat as the peloton bore down.
Along the way he also hoovered up the mountains points, placing second over the big cat-one climb of Piller Hohe and then first over the cat-three Reschenpass. By the day's end he'd moved up to third place in the mountains classification.
"The plan to go in the break if it was big and it was big," he told Cycling Weekly afterwards. "Then there was the opportunity for the mountains points. So we gave that a bit of a dig, but didn't quite get [the jersey]. We didn't want to go too deep for it. But yeah, if it's there, why not?"
Before today, the 23-year-old Welwyn rider had spent a useful 140km in breakaways – and managed to more or less double that on today's ride. Not that he was overly fussed: "I just do what I'm told," he cracked.
Within the nine-man make-up of Stockwell's escapees were local Innsbruck boy and yesterday's near-winner Emanuel Zangerle (Vorarlberg), plus three other Austrian riders – they were great, Stockwell said, for a bit of local knowledge.
"There were quite a lot of guys. It was a big break. The Austrian guys were taking the lead a bit on the descent. None of the descents were too crazy, but for sure it was useful having guys that know where they're going," he said.
The rest of the race would be largely based on the performance and aspirations of their main GC rider Jacob Omrzel, Stockwell said, although he didn't rule out further breakaway and mountains points antics.
"I guess we see how Jacob is in the GC, because obviously, that's the team's main concern," he said. "Hopefully I have the opportunity to maybe look at some more mountains points or maybe go in the break. I don't know. There's a few nice stages which finish a bit easier, so we'll see."
