Tour of Britain Men: Tim Merlier outpaces Olav Kooij to win stage 2 reduced bunch sprint finish

Stage 1 winner Lewis Askey (NSN Cycling) finished safely in the peloton to retain the green jersey as the overall leader of the race.

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Thursday’s 180km journey from Boston to Skegness, with just two very minor climbs on the menu, was always likely to end in a sprint finish, and Merlier was the hot favourite of those fast finishers. However, it was far from a straightforward stage as crosswinds blew in from the North Sea.

The wind didn’t cause a problem during the early part of the stage, despite teams riding in echelon formation. Alertness was high, but the pace was low, and there were no splits to speak of as they rode calmly behind the day’s four-man breakaway.

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However, that all changed 60km from the finish, when the pace picked up and the peloton suddenly split in two. For Filippo Ganna (Netcompany Ineos), the split came at the worst possible moment, as the Italian suffered a puncture and had to stop for a bike change.

Ganna and his Ineos teammates would spend the rest of the race chasing in the second peloton. For a while, it looked like he would return as, with help from Flanders-Baloise, the gap came down from one minute to less than 30 seconds, with the group ahead in sight at several moments.

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However, they couldn’t close the gap, and from 30km out it started to drift back out again, reaching the minute mark once more with just over 10km to go.

At that point, it was a lost cause. There had been no shortage of interest up front in driving on the move, with QuickStep, Decathlon, Tudor, and notably UAE all pulling hard in the first peloton. UAE don’t have a sprinter here, but for a second day in a row they sent Florian Vermeersch on a late attack, the Belgian soloing from 7km out and surviving until 2km to go.

QuickStep did the lion’s share in bringing him back, and it was Jasper Stuyven who led out the sprint for the Belgian team. Merlier was nowhere near his wheel going into the final 500 metres, but after coming out of the late left-hand bend, he jumped early from far back, with around 200 metres to go, and stormed to the front.

From there, no one could get near him, and Kooij had to settle for second place fully in the slipstream.

In the overall standings, Askey leads by 12 seconds over UAE’s Tim Wellens, who replaces Ganna, who has now tumbled out of overall contention. Matteo Trentin (Tudor), who bagged bonus seconds at the second intermediate sprint, moves up to third at 19 seconds.