It is six years since Edvald Boasson Hagen wiped the floor at this race, winning the overall standings and four stages, and the Norwegian turned the clock back a little when he ended up in the yellow jersey by a single second after the toughest stage of this year’s event. He was overhauled for the stage win high up in the Pennines by Team Sky’s Wout Poels but fought hard to stay within a few metres of the Dutchman and was duly rewarded.
The pair fought out a slow-motion finish on the exposed final kilometres through the moorlands on the spine of England, with Poels attacking repeatedly as the peloton was whittled down remorselessly by the gradient and a stiff breeze. Poels – who played a key role in Chris Froome’s Tour de France win in July – had the acceleration to get away each time but Boasson Hagen pegged him back before finally going clear just before the kilometre-to-go board.
“I wanted to gain time, so I attacked but the headwind got to me,” Boasson Hagen said. The Norwegian looked a certain winner of the ninth Tour of Britain stage of his career as he came through the last hairpin before the final pull but Poels closed, bided his time and surged past with 150m to go. At the finish line by the cafe on the summit, 1,904ft above sea level, the Team Sky man had a two second lead on Boasson Hagen; the pair had started the stage in second and fourth overall respectively, and after time bonuses were deducted, the MTN rider led by a second.
The field came in dribs and drabs behind, with the morning’s yellow jersey, Juan José Lobato, at the back of a group of sprinters over 10min behind. The third rider overall now, Rasmus Guldhammer of Cult Racing, is 30sec back – first of a closely-packed little group of riders that includes Owain Doull in a promising fifth place overall; he is likely to figure when the Great Britain team is announced for the world road race championships on Friday.
On paper the race is now down to Boasson Hagen and Poels, and that single second. Poels could well try to escape during Friday’s hilly stage through the Peak District but Boasson Hagen has a key advantage in his superior sprinting ability; that should make it easier for him to garner time bonuses before the finish in London on Sunday.
Boasson Hagen was once referred to as the next Eddy Merckx because of the precocious talent he showed in his early days at the HTC-Colombia team but his career gradually stalled after he moved to Team Sky in 2010. He won two stages in the 2011 Tour de France and managed a silver medal at the world road championships but was more often seen making the pace for Wiggins or Chris Froome as a domestique de luxe and never managed to win the major Classic that had looked bound to fall his way at some point.
Last year was fallow, and this season he has moved to the South African MTN-Qhubeka team; he has yet to return to his youthful best but success here could give his career fresh impetus at the age of 28. MTN are rumoured to be on the point of acquiring a major sponsor and Mark Cavendish for next season and they came to the fore late on after Sky had kept the peloton within reach of the day’s five-rider escape – which included OnePro’s Peter Williams who now leads both the sprints and mountains competitions – until the serious business got under way five miles before the finish.
