The first major sort-out of this year’s Tour of Britain came in the closing phase of a hilly stage won by the Czech national champion, Petr Vakoc, and while Monday’s 159km through Lancashire will not have decided the overall winner the list of those with a chance of taking victory when the race finishes in London on Sunday is now limited to the 45 members of the chase group that sprinted up the lengthy drag of Albert Road between nine and 36 seconds behind Vakoc, who gave Etixx-Quick-Step the win that had so narrowly eluded Mark Cavendish on Sunday.
The Belgian squad’s tactics had worked to perfection the previous day only for Cavendish to fumble the finishing touch and over this tough loop through the Forests of Bowland and Pendle Etixx again played a blinder in spite of the fact that the hills did not suit the Manxman.
Vakoc, the world university champion – his BA in economics is currently on hold – had shown his strength the previous day in closing down the day’s escape on behalf of Cavendish but here he was given licence to race for himself. He made the critical move 16km out, evading an earlier escape of eight riders which had gone clear 30km earlier after the climb of Bleara Moor, and was hanging 15sec off the front of the chasers as Colne drew near.
The pursuit through the Lancashire lanes had been led by the Swiss squad IAM and the Danes of Tinkoff-Saxo, plus André Greipel’s Lotto-Soudal team, and with such a small advantage, Vakoc’s chances looked minimal until four Etixx riders appeared en bloc at the front of the peloton to make the point that, if the chase succeeded and the frontrunners caught the Czech, there was every chance one of his team-mates – Zdenek Stybar most probably – would take advantage.
That stalled the chase just enough for Vakoc to remain ahead, although the final climb from Colne Water past the railway station and up Albert Road – with the finish line hidden tantalisingly round a left-hand bend – clearly stretched him to the limit, as he needed a lengthy lie down on the Tarmac to regain his breath. As well as the stage win, the 23-year-old ended up in the race leader’s yellow jersey, 11sec ahead of the Spaniard Juan José Lobato, who finished second on the stage, with the former winner Edvard Boasson-Hagen 15sec back.
Vakoc has the credentials for eventual victory, having taken his national Tour this year and the Tour of Slovakia earlier in his career, but Etixx know just how tough it can be to keep a grip on the lead in this race, having held a commanding position last year with Michal Kwiatkowski only for their relatively small team to be unable to defend the jersey all the way to London.
The Etixx team manager, Brian Holm, had said that there was no chance of his riders risking a repetition of last year’s bitter experience and Vakoc hinted that his team may be ready to relinquish the jersey unless they find allies along the way. “It will be really hard to control the race. It’s difficult to predict how it will develop. It’s impossible to ride all the stages trying to control things. It’s just too much so we will have to figure out what our tactics are.”
While Colne is known in cycling circles as the home of the London 2012 team-pursuit gold medallist Steven Burke, in the wider world its most famous son is Wallace Hartley, the band leader on the Titanic, who played on as the liner sank. Only a select few managed to keep their heads above water here, one being the British national champion Peter Kennaugh, whose Sky team-mate Elia Viviani slipped backwards on Bleara Moor and never saw the front again.
Those still in the mix include Kennaugh’s team-mate, the climbing specialist Wouter Poels, and the Team Wiggins Welshman Owain Doull, who finished sixth on the stage – Sir Bradley, on the other hand, figured in the large backmarkers’ group with Cavendish – and now lies seventh overall, one place ahead of the Yorkshireman Graham Briggs of JLT-Condor, who has lost half a stone recently and has his sights set on a top-10 placing. Kennaugh was annoyed to be docked 20sec by the race referees after he took a gel from his team car within the final 15km. “I got a 20” time penalty for taking a gel under 15km to go,” he wrote on Twitter, “oops didn’t know about that rule. another stupid uci rule that makes no sense.”
