Chris Lawless became the first British winner of the Tour de Yorkshire after defending champion Greg Van Avermaet won an enthralling final stage in Leeds. Van Avermaet (CCC Team) forged clear with Lawless and his Team Ineos team-mate Eddie Dunbar as the 175km trek from Halifax neared its conclusion, and while it was Van Avermaet who sprinted to victory along The Headrow, Lawless came home in second to seal the biggest overall race win of his fledgling career.
A wall of sound greeted Alexander Kamp as he sprinted to a nail-biting victory on the third stage of the Tour de Yorkshire. Scarborough’s North Bay provided a dramatic finish location for the fifth year in succession, and as the waves crashed onto the coastline, a crescendo of noise also erupted as a vastly reduced peloton raced onto the closing straight.
The wet weather didn’t dampen the spirits on the opening stage of the 2019 Tour de Yorkshire as Jesper Asselman sprinted to a dramatic breakaway victory in Selby. The riders received a warm welcome in Doncaster’s Market Place at the start of the day and continued to be cheered along by the sizeable crowds who braved the elements to see the world’s best riders in action.
With the retirement of David Miller, Scotland has just one representative left in the World Tour, Sky’s Andy Fenn; but with MTN-Qhubeka morphing into ‘Dimension Data for Qhubeka’ for 2016 and moving up to the first division of professional cycling the nation has another man at the heart of world cycling. Brian Smith is General Manager with the South African team and always happy to chat to VeloVeritas. Here’s what he had to say to us as the day before his riders Cam Meyer and Nathan Haas grabbed second and fourth behind Jack Bobridge in the Australian Elite Road race Championships in Ballarat.
Following in the footsteps of Scottish track stars Mark Stewart and Katie Archibald, we believe Scotland’s Joe Nally to be the youngest ever winner of the British Senior Points Race Championship at just 17 years-of-age. The race was held at the Manchester Velodrome but Nally is another product of Glasgow’s beautiful indoor track; taking bronze in the team pursuit to go with his points gold. ‘Best have a word with the man,’ we thought ourselves here at VeloVeritas.
Here at VeloVeritas we were saddened to hear of the recent loss of one of the names from our youth. Former French professional champion and Tour de France ace Raymond Delisle died recently at the age of 70. One of those super cool Peugeot riders from the late 60's and early 70's with names like Pingeon, Thevenet, Danguillaume, Ovion - and Delisle, they even sounded classy.
Ben Swift launched a monster kick, leaving Scot, John Archibald to the bronze then zooming past teammate Ian Stannard on his blindside in the streets of Norwich to arrive at the line in solitary splendour and unleash a mighty roar of triumph and relief. We caught up with him at his Isle of Man home on the Tuesday after his win...
Bonjour! The start starts today in Montereau-Fault-Yonne, but we're not there. Usually I start the VeloVeritas diary for Le Tour de France 2009 in the morning but then have to switch to 'other work' mode for most of the day - going back to poor old VV late in the day, as Martin and I fight off le vieux homme Morpheus.