Tour of Britain: Greipel wins opening stage in Castle Douglas

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Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) waited patiently and then delivered a winning sprint right on cue at the opening stage of the Tour of Britain. The German road champion won the stage ahead of Caleb Ewan (Orica-BikeExchange) and Ramon Sinkeldam (Giant-Alpecin) to take the first leader's jersey.

"It is really nice to start off this tour with a victory," Greipel said. "We have reached our goal already from the first day. Everything else is a bonus."

A crash in the final 200 metres through a lefthand corner took down several top sprinters including Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), Juan Jose Lobato (Movistar) and Elia Viviani (Team Sky), whose bike was broken completely in half. 

Lotto Soudal led Greipel into the final few hundred metres and he swept thought he final bend ahead of the crash to take the first stage win, largely uncontested by some of the field's other key sprinters.

Watch Tour of Britain stage 1 highlights video

How it happened

The Tour of Britain opened with a 168km race from Glasgow to Castle Douglas with three intermediate sprints at 4.7km, 42.7km and 102.3km. There were also three KOM points on the road: Skares at 77km, Kerse and 91.4km, and the stage's high point, Dalmellington at 108.6km.

Five riders rode away from the field in the opening kilometre of the race; Jasper Bovenhuis and Emiel Wastyn (An Post), Thomas Moses (JLT-Condor), Peter Williams (One Pro Cycling), who won the sprint and mountain jerseys last year, and Jonathan McEvoy (NFTO).

The breakaway riders worked in unison to build a five-minute lead, but that fell to under three minutes at the midway point of the stage.

As the breakaway hit the lumpy sections of the course, Moses picked up the first set of mountain points in Skares. He was challenged by Williams, who attacked the breakaway in pursuit of the of the second set of mountain points in Kerse, but Moses managed to take those points as well.

Dimension Data set the pace at the front of the main field, no doubt looking for a stage win with their sprinter Mark Cavendish. They got some help from LottoNL-Jumbo working for Dylan Groenewegen, but there were a series of other bunch sprinters looking for the stage win and the first leader’s jersey.

Up front, Moses attacked early at the base of the finale climb to Dalmellington, but he was caught and passed by Williams, who took the lead in the mountain classification. Meanwhile, Bovenhuis picked up full points in all three sprints of the day and has a healthy lead in that classification.

As the race closed in on Douglas Castle, Wastyn made several moves to clear the breakaway but he was quickly brought back into the fold a few kilometres later each time.

The gap, which had dropped significantly, stretched back out to 50 seconds and then reduced again to 13 seconds as LottoNL-Jumbo, Orica-BikeExchange working for Caleb Ewan and Team Sky’s Ian Stannard set the pace for Elia Viviani, Cannondale for Wouter Wippert, Etixx-QuickStep for Max Richeze, among others, all emerged at the front of the peloton with 20km to go.

In the final 10km, Dimension Data led the peloton and swept up the breakaway. But it was Lotto-Soudal with Greipel on their wheel that had the biggest presence, pulling up along the left side of the road, while Trek-Segafredo with Giacomo Nizzolo, was on the right. They emerged as the front reshuffled with other teams Orica-BikeExchange, LottoNL-Jumbo, One Pro Cycling and Cannondale, all trying to get into formation for the imminent bunch sprint.

Mark Renshaw monouvered through the front end of the field moving Cavendish up to the front with four kilometres to go, while Great Britain moved up through an opening in the centre of the field with sprinters Dan McLay and Adam Blythe.

As the sprinters rounded the final lefthand bend in the closing hundred metres of the race, a crash took down part of the field leaving several key sprinters out of contention. Greipel made it thought he accident in top position and sprinted for the opening stage victory.

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