Tour of Britain: Trentin wins stage 2

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The battle for the overall standings at the Tour of Britain began to take shape on a 165km loop through the Scottish borders, starting and finishing at Kelso, where the Italian Matteo Trentin gained the stage win and green race leader’s jersey after his Mitchelton-Scott team perfectly executed a plan to dislodge the stage 1 winner Dylan Groenewegen. 

Two second category climbs in the final 40 kilometres gave the perfect platform, and on the first, Scott’s Gap, Mitchelton were aided and abetted by the restless Mathieu Van der Poel, who sprang out of the peloton together with Lotto-Soudal’s Frederick Frison in pursuit an earlier three-man breakaway of Gediminas Bagdonas (AG2R), Pete Williams (Swift) and Chris Jenner (Wiggins). 

Van der Poel and Frison caught the trio, and with Mitchelton and Ineos stringing out the peloton to bring back the Dutchman and company, that set the stage for a tough final climb of Dingleton, where it was Ineos’ turn to go on the offensive with Pavel Sivakov. As the young Russian went clear, Groenewegen was drifting off the back. The Dutchman had team mates with him, but his fate depended on how the front of the race reacted. 

With both Mitchelton and Israel Cycling Academy - on behalf of Davide Cimolai - determined to press on, Groenewegen had little chance of regaining contact, along with other sprinters such as Mark Cavendish and Gabz Cullaigh. Whether the reduced front peloton would stay together was a different question though and one that looked like being answered when Alex Dowsett drifted gently off the front of the bunch with three kilometres remaining. 

The Essex time trial specialist rapidly gained eight seconds and a stage victory for Katyusha beckoned briefly as he held off a strong chase from Israel Cycling Academy. He held onto about 25 metres lead going over the River Tweed and into the final sweeping left hander to the finish, but it was not enough, and Trentin zipped past with 100 metres go on on the cobbled finish, with Jasper de Buyst of Lotto-Soudal coming in second to the former European champion and Mike Teunissen in third, and not far from making up for Groenewegen’s lack of climbing ability.

“When Dowsett attacked it was a really strong move and even though Israel Cycling Academy began chasing, it was always going to be a matter of metres,” said Trentin. “He deserved the win, because it was a really good attack, but my guys delivered me well, even though they almost missed it on the second last corner. We were working so hard for the finale, first to get rid of Groenewegen, and then to prevent him from coming back.”

That placed the Italian in the race leader’s jersey from Cimolai, with another probable mass sprint beckoning in Newcastle after the run south-east from Berwick, but this time a definite uphill finish in Grey Street, where Teunissen or Van der Poel looked set to be the favourite, with the race lead likely to change shoulders once again.