2 for 2 for Kooij in Tour of Britain, despite dog weather and a completely botched lead-out

Visma | Lease a Bike came to Great Britain with big ambitions for the Tour of Britain, and they made an immediate impact in stage 1: Olav Kooij won the mass sprint and took the leader’s jersey. Stage 2 offered another chance, as the course was pancake-flat. Or would it be time for Matthew Brennan to shine? We were about to find out...

The flat stage was animated by four attackers, two of whom came from the Dutch-French Unibet Tietema Rockets team: Hartthijs de Vries and Andreas Stokbro went up the road, joined by Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto) and Rafael Reis (Anicolor / Tien 21). Of course, such a breakaway rarely has a chance on a stage like this, and the sprint teams left nothing to chance.

Rarely did the gap exceed one minute, and with 60 kilometers to go, the leaders only had 45 seconds on the peloton. After a while, Stokbro suffered a puncture, leaving three riders up front. Meanwhile, heavy rain had begun to fall, the weather on the British Isles can be wildly unpredictable, and today was no exception. Within a minute, it had completely turned!

Surprisingly, Stokbro managed to rejoin the front group. Meanwhile, the gap had increased again: with 30 kilometers to go, it was back up to 1 minute and 30 seconds and the worsening rain worked in their favor. At times, riders had to ride through deep puddles on narrow roads, which completely disrupted the peloton’s rhythm. The four breakaway riders were able to push on relatively smoothly.

The dramatic weather, unsurprisingly, led to crashes—though thankfully, no major incidents occurred. With 16 kilometers to go, the break still had a 1-minute lead, though Reis had already dropped off the back. Up to that point, Visma | Lease a Bike was left all alone to lead the chase. Was an upset in the making? The pace remained high, which spelled bad news for Thymen Arensman. The Dutchman from INEOS punctured at a particularly bad moment.

The pace in the peloton wasn’t high enough, until Remco Evenepoel decided to intervene. The Belgian hit the front and immediately started slashing away at the breakaway’s advantage. Suddenly, it looked like an impossible task for the remaining trio. The time trial world champion laid down a brutal tempo, and with just 3 kilometers to go, the final escapees were caught. It would be a sprint finish once again!

Tord Gudmestad wouldn’t be part of it, Tuesday’s runner-up punctured at the worst possible moment. To make matters worse, there was a heavy crash involving Bauke Mollema and Thymen Arensman. That left Olav Kooij and Matthew Brennan to sort things out on their own. Brennan once again hit the front for the race leader, but soon Kooij had to do it solo.

Even starting his sprint from far out, no one could match his power.