Sutton claims first stage at Tour of Britain

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Chris Sutton (Garmin-Slipstream) won the battle of the sprinters in York today at the end of stage one of the Tour of Britain. Sutton held off Michel Merlo (Barloworld) and Ben Swift (Team Katusha) as the peloton thundered down the narrow finishing straight in the Yorkshire city.

Sutton was delighted to have won the sunny 173km stage, which averaged nearly 42kph. "Wearing the yellow jersey is one of the highlights of my career," said Sutton afterwards. "I came so close to winning a couple of stages last year and to sprint for myself and win one is kinda nice. Our team is on a roll at the moment with three victories in the last 24 hours."

Garmin-Slipstream rode on the front for long periods to bring Sutton into contention for the sprint.

"The team knew I was motivated," said Sutton: "I told them I could win three or four stages here. They stuck their heads out into the wind and rode on the front. It is hard to control a bike race with only six riders but everyone is in the same boat and we pulled it off today.

"Anything is possible now and I just have to take it day by day. You can have good legs one day and bad ones the next. It's a good sign for me because I didn't feel super great today but still pulled off the win and I can only get better from here, I hope. For me to win the overall is a big ask. I would love to win the stage in London."

All the domestic British teams had been active in the first part of the race with Dan Craven (Rapha Condor) and Graham Briggs (CandiTV-Marshalls) both trying to create breakaway chances.

Finally Marten Mortensen (Vascansoleil) and Thomas De Gendt (TopSport -Vlaanderen) broke the elastic to the bunch and the duo built up a lead of over 10 minutes by the time they reached the summit of the second category climb at Kilnwick Percy. Mortensen took the honours over the summit. De Gendt had won the first sprint prime at Forest Pines.

Edvald Boasson Hagen (Columbia-HTC) had shown his intent on overall victory when he pipped Alexander Kristoff (Joker Bianchi) to the final bonus second at Forest Pines. Kristoff found the extra zip to win that bonus at the next sprint at Pocklington with Mortensen and De Gendt way ahead on the road.

Tom Southam (Rapha Condor) was busy mopping up king of the mountain points and the Cornishman ended the day third place in that competition.

The leaders brave efforts were further hampered when they got caught a railway level crossing but the duo stayed clear for many miles and traded sprints for climbs between themselves with De Gendt ending the day wearing the sprints jersey and Mortensen leading in the king of the mountains competition.

Virtually the whole field was together as it gathered momentum with three kilometres to go with Bradley Wiggins (Garmin-Slipstream) leading out 23-year-old Sutton. Sutton hit the front with 150m to go and the powerful Aussie held on to take victory.

Mortensen was happy with the result on the day. "We were well working together in the break," said Mortensen: "I am here to show myself and to get into the Danish team for the World Championships and that means that I have to do well in this race. I will try to keep the mountains jersey. Some one said this morning that Vaconsoleil cannot ride in the climbs, so I have to prove that we can."

De Gendt was disappointed that the break did not stay clear. "We had a twelve minute lead and I thought that we could stay in front but it was tough today. We lost time on the climbs and then we had a head wind when we turned back towards the finish. I was dropped in the last three kilometres and lost over two minutes. I am going to attack in the next few days to defend the sprinters jersey, but it is going to be hard."