Tour de Yorkshire: Voeckler claims stage and overall win

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Thomas Voeckler (Direct Energie) outfoxed and outfought Nicolas Roche (Team Sky) to win the final stage and the overall at the Tour de Yorkshire.

The two riders came together come into the finish town of Scarborough after breaking away on the final climb of an extremely hilly stage. Adam Yates (Orica-GreenEdge), Steven Kruiswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Anthony Turgis (Cofidis) were with them going onto the sharp climb up to Oliver’s Mount, which overlooks Scarborough.

When Roche attacked, it initially appeared that no one would be able to respond to the Irishman. But Voeckler eventually jumped away from the other three and bridged up to the Sky man on the descent.

With 5km to the line and the chasing trio just a handful of seconds in arrears, the pair collaborated as the course shot them down to the seafront and onto the spectacular sweep of Marine Drive around the foot of Scarborough Castle to the finish.

With 1,200 metres left, Voeckler decided he had done enough work on the front and sat on Roche’s wheel, glancing back regularly to check that their advantage was holding. With 300 metres to the line, Voeckler attacked and immediately gapped Roche. The Irishman tried to respond. But, after losing out to Sky’s Lars-Petter Nordhaug last year, the French veteran wasn’t about to allow one of the Norwegian’s teammates deny him once again.

The stage win and the bonus seconds were enough to hand the overall title to Voeckler, with Roche finishing second overall at six seconds. Turgis, the other Frenchman in the five-man break, took third place overall, with Yates the leading Briton in fourth.

How it unfolded

By far the toughest test of the three-day race, the final stage of the Tour de Yorkshire was made even more difficult by a viciously gusting wind and, for the first half of the day, persistent rain. The break went early and featured Liam Holohan (WIGGINS), Nathan Haas (Dimension Data), Loïc Chetout (Cofidis), Chris Opie (ONE Pro Cycling), Marco Haller (Katusha), Matt Cronshaw (Madison-Genesis), Nick van der Lijke (Roompot), Maxime Farazijn (Topsport Vlaanderen), Gabriel Cullaigh and Ian Wilkinson (both Great Britain).

Haas, relishing life with Dimension Data, made the most of the narrow advantage the break held for the first half of the stage, taking maximum points on the first-cat climb of Sutton Bank and second-cat Blakey Ridge. This was enough to give the Australian the King of the Mountains title.

The break was swept up approaching the third climb, another first-cat hill coming out of Grosmont. Team Sky took control of the bunch just before it, with Andy Fenn and then Pete Kennaugh fulfilling teammate Luke Rowe’s pre-stage promise that they would make the stage very hard. Kennaugh was particulary strong, gapping the peloton as he led out of Grosmont.

As the peloton emerged onto the open moorland and into a cross-wind, Sky piled on the power at the front, causing a series of echelons to form behind them. The first few groups came back together, but the concertina effect continued as Sky took every opportunity to shed riders from the lead group.

Coming out of Robin Hood’s Bay, Kennaugh finally cracked, but teammates Rowe and Gianni Moscon were ready to take over. Their pressure reduced the front group to less than 20 riders, but Giant-Alpecin’s Nikias Arndt, lying third overall and now leader on the road, was still there going onto the penultimate categorised climb of Harwood Dale.

Far quicker than anyone else in the group, Arndt responded well to Moscon’s initial acceleration on the climb. But the German was not able to follow when Roche delivered a blistering acceleration. In fact, Yates was the only rider initially able to follow.

Kruijswijk clawed his way up to them, then French duo Voeckler and Turgis joined forces and bridged up to the three leaders with 18 kilometres remaining. Arndt made a valiant solo bid to cross the gap, but eventually slipped back to the second group, which was a minute back and well out of contention as the final climb of Oliver’s Mount loomed.

The strongest on the climbs, Roche got a gap here once again, but the Irishman failed to see off Voeckler, who made his racing experience and, crucially, his knowledge of the final run-in count.

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