Chris Sutton wins opening stage

12.09.2009

Massive crowds in York saw Chris Sutton take victory in the opening stage of The Tour of Britain, pulling on the race’s first yellow jersey as won a high-speed bunch sprint on Malton Road to hold off the challenge of Michele Merlo and Ben Swift

Sutton’s victory came after hard work from his Garmin – Slipstream team to reel in a 156-kilometre break from two riders, who had escaped not long after the start in Scunthorpe.

Speaking afterwards the Australian described his win as “one of the highlights of my career”, going on to claim that he could win “three or four” stages of the race, but that the overall remained “a big ask”.

Big crowds and sunny skies greeted the 100 riders as they arrived in Scunthorpe for the opening stage of the 2009 Tour of Britain.  Thousands lined the roadside throughout the town and out into the countryside as the riders rolled out of town for a loop of the North Lincolnshire countryside.

Dane Michael Mortensen and Belgian Thomas De Gendt were on the attack early, escaping from a very active peloton inside the first two miles.  The pair quickly built their lead with no concerted chase from the peloton behind.

By Appleby after 12.8 kilometres the duo had almost five minutes, a lead that would rise to nearly thirteen minutes by Swinefleet after 58.6 kilometres.

Neither rider contested the first Sprint of The Tour at the Forest Pines Resort on the edge of Scunthorpe, with De Gendt taking the maximum points ahead of Mortensen, with the Norwegian pairing of last year’s Sprints Jersey winner Edvald Boasson Hagen taking two points and Alexander Kristoff the remaining point.

The perfect weather conditions meant there were big crowds at each point the race passed through, with particularly large and loud contingents in Ashby and Burringham, while even larger numbers greeted the race at the second Sprint in Pocklington.

There De Gendt sealed the Sprints Jersey for the evening, heading Mortensen, while Kristoff jumped out of the bunch to head off the challenge of German champion Martin Reimer.

Once off the flat, exposed roads and into the Yorkshire Wolds the advantage of the break began to crumble, falling back under the ten-minute mark at the packed summit of the opening King of the Mountains point of Kilnwick Percy.

Mortensen led De Gendt over for maximum points, while behind four British riders led the peloton over to kick of their challenges for the jersey.  The Vacansoleil rider also took the points at the second climb, with Bradley Wiggins also appearing towards the front of the bunch to collect two valuable points.

The climb also saw several riders tailed off, among them Sutton’s teammates Trent Lowe and Ricardo Van der Velde (an earlier crash victim) and the Halfords pairing Rob Hayles and Ian Bibby, with the Garmin duo both shouting and clapping enthusiastically as they crossed the line during the presentation of the Yellow Jersey to Sutton.

With several teams, including Garmin, Barloworld and Rabobank, all putting in an effort on the front, the breaks day in the sun was soon over, after an effort covering 156 kilometres of the roads of North Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and Humber.

One all back together the speed could really rise, with the peloton sweeping into York along Malton Road with a view of the famous Minster ahead of them.

Speaking at the post-race press conference, stage winner and holder of both the Yellow Jersey and The Prostate Cancer Charity Points Jersey Chris Sutton said;  “It’s one of the highlights of my career.  I came so close to winning a couple of stages last year, so I finally get to sprint for myself and win one.  It’s nice.

“Our team is on a roll at the moment, we’ve had three victories in the last 24 hours with Dave Zabriske at the Tour of Missouri and Ryder Hesjedal at the Vuelta a Espana.

“They could see I’m motivated, they could see I’m keen and they know I want to win.  I think that I can win three or four stages here, so they road on the flat and road quite hard though it’s quite hard to control the break with only six riders, and when you think about it you’ve got myself as a sprinter, so then we’re down to five and we’re keeping Bradley (Wiggins) for the final three, four kilometres and then we’re down to four.

“Everyone’s in the same boat, but we pulled it off today, that’s life!

“I’m just going to take it day-by-day.  You can have a good day one day and a bad day one day.  It’s good for me as I didn’t feel so good today and I still pulled off the win and it can only get better from here.  For me to win the overall, it’s a big ask so I’ll just make sure I’m on my game when we head up for a few of the harder stages.”

After describing the crowds in York as “incredible”, Sutton expanded, saying, “There’s a lot of people out, I was quite surprised, but I suppose all the British have got to take the chance when they can!  It’s so good to see so many people out, I suppose what Bradley Wiggins did in the Tour de France inspired a lot of people, and I think that’s great for cycling in the UK.”

Commenting on the chances of defending his King of the Mountains jersey, Martin Mortensen said; “I always want to try, but you know the guy this morning said that Vacansoleil can not ride on the climbs, so I have to prove otherwise.”

The Dane, who is hoping to ride the World Championships, also had a few words for the spectators who lined the route, saying “It’s unbelievable how many people there were, it’s cool!”

Breakaway companion Thomas De Gendt commented on how tough he found the climbs, saying; “It was a very hard day, but I did my best.  When we had twelve minutes I hoped that we could stay in front, but in the end there were too many mountains so we lost a lot of minutes in a short space.

“I’m going to try and go on the attack in the next day’s so I can defend my jerseys, but it’s going to be hard.”

Sunday’s second stage of The Tour sees the race take in 153.3 kilometres of roads in the North East as the race travels from Darlington to NewcastleGateshead, with an iconic finish on the banks of the River Tyne under the watchful gaze of the Millennium ‘Winking’ Bridge.

Full results of Stage One can be found in the results section of the website.