Magnus Cort Nielsen Steals Stage 2 – Tour de Yorkshire

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Barnsley to Ilkley, Friday May 4th 2018 – Another historic day in the Tour de Yorkshire.

Yesterday, Harry Tanfield became the first Yorkshireman to win a stage and today Magnus Cort Nielsen of Astana Pro Team powered his way to victory at the first ever summit finish of the Tour de Yorkshire and once again the Yorkshire crowds, over 600,000 of them came out to cheer on the riders and line the whole course.

It looked to be a battle of the Belgians late on in the race as stage, and General Classification favourites, Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) and Serge Pauwels (Dimension Data) gave their all to take the victory. However, it was the Danish sprinter, Magnus Cort Nielsen (Astana Pro Team) who showed a swift turn of speed to take the win; and the overall General Classification lead.

Yesterdays surprise result had all the teams on edge today, they were marking each other and trying to keep the peloton tight. Six riders did get away from the pack just before the opening categorised climb in the form of Ben Swift (Great Britain National Team), Ian Stannard (Team Sky), Patrick Bevin (BMC), Hayden McCromick (One Pro Cycling), Laurens De Vreese (Astana) and Johannes Fröhlinger (Team Sunweb).

This group had talent, and Swift and Stannard worked very hard at the front, they weren’t allowed too much ground by the head of the peloton who had to raise the pace, this split the peloton itself and had a few riders straggling off the back.

The Cote de Blacker Hill climb was taken by De Vreese with Stannard and Bevin following. Ben Swift took the sprint.

Another break managed to form and this time, it was the team of Tom Baylis (One Pro Cycling), Garikoitz Bravo (Euskadi Basque Country-Murias), Tobyn Horton (Madison Genesis) and Stephane Rossetto (Cofidis). This group had a few navigational problems on the route, firstly being directed down a road off the course by the lead car, this lost them a whole minute over the peloton and led them to be confronted by a line of oncoming cars, luckily the cars were already stationary due the narrow county lanes and passing places. The second incident appeared to be a lapse of concentration at a fork in the road which confused the riders, and split them momentarily, partly down to the speed they were travelling. This break stayed away into the second and final sprint of the day in Scholes where Baylis took maximum points with Horton close behind and Oiarbide in third.

Rossetto did manage  break from the lead group to take a temporary 55-second lead but this was short lived as the riders started to climb the Cote de Old Pool Bank.

BMC pushed on to put Van Avermaet in position to strike late on but it was British rider Jacob Scott (One Pro Cycling) who made the first move in this highly strung game of chess and led the race around 2km on the final climb, the Cote de Cow and Calf.

Serge Pauwels tried to stay in the leaders jersey by battling it out with Greg Van Avermaet who had made his intentions clear earlier in the day, but they were both caught out by the impressive speed of puncheur Magnus Cort Nielsen, he seemed to come dancing up the road from nowhere to pass them, looking as fresh as you can while climbing the brutal Cow and Calf. It was an agonising drag to the top and the finish line, but it was a well timed and manoeuvre by the Danish rider that won him the stage and GC jersey.

The Tour de Yorkshire continues with stage 3 on Saturday.