Tour of Britain 2018 – Stage 5 [FULL STAGE – Team Time Trial]

September 6, 2018

Tour of Britain 2018 – Stage 5 – Cockermouth – Whinlatter Pass (TTT) : 14 km

With no Lars Boom, the 2018 OVO Energy Tour of Britain is without its defending champion. However, the Dutchman’s LottoNL-Jumbo team are bringing none other than Primož Roglic – the Slovenian star who took a solo stage win in the Pyrenees and fourth place overall at this year’s Tour de France. And it gets even better than that, with 2018 Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas and four-time Tour winner Chris Froome lining up for Team Sky at the race. Add to the mix sprinters André Greipel (Lotto Soudal), Caleb Ewan (Mitchelton-Scott) and Fernando Gaviria, plus the latter’s Quick-Step Floors teammate and the winner of two stages and the polka-dot jersey as best climber at this year’s Tour de France, Julian Alaphilippe, and it quickly becomes apparent that the Tour of Britain organisers are doing nothing short of spoiling roadside – and armchair – fans at this year’s race. On the racing front, the uphill team time trial on stage 5 brings something new to the table, while the climbers are catered for with a double ascent of the same climb used for the TTT – albeit from the other side of Whinlatter Pass – the next day. With sprinting opportunities aplenty, and the big finish in London, it all adds up to suggest that this year’s eight-day race could be one of the best yet.

Primoz Roglic took a strong option on overall victory in the Tour of Britain when his LottoNL-Jumbo team put in a stellar display of cohesion and power to win the challenging 14-kilometre team time trial on stage 5, finishing with the ascent of Whinlatter Pass, over 300m above sea level.

The win gave Roglic a chance of adding a fourth stage race win to victories this season in the Tour de Romandie, Tour of the Basque Country and his home Tour of Slovenia.

Starting third from last in the field of 20 teams, LottoNL-Jumbo finished with five of their six riders still together, with only Maarten Wynants unable to hold the pace set by Roglic, Jos Van Emden, Koen Bouwman, Pascal Eenkhorn and Neilson Powless; the latter did well to hang on after appearing to go through a bad patch in the final push to the line.

LottoNL-Jumbo finished immediately after Quick-Step Floors had posted a fastest time which lasted all of three minutes, the Dutch team managing 19:37 to the Belgians’ 19:53. That left Roglic six seconds ahead of Julian Alaphilippe in the overall standings, with the Frenchman’s teammate Bob Jungels lurking ominously at 16 seconds.

As well as putting Roglic in the race leader’s green jersey, LottoNL-Jumbo placed Eenkhorn, Van Emden and Powless in the top 10 overall, which suggests they might have the strength to control Alaphilippe and Jungels, set to be their main rivals on the final 168km stage, with its four climbs, including two ascents of Whinlatter, from its tougher eastern side to the same finish line in the pinewoods.

Quick-Step crossed the line with four men, losing Iljo Keisse and Fernando Gaviria early on the rolling run-out from the start line to the beginning of the climb, which kicked up sharply with about four kilometres to go. That left the Belgian team with no margin for error, and the same dilemma was clearly felt by the other top teams; Team Sky dropped Chris Froome with four kilometres remaining and Lucas Wisnowski a couple of kilometres later, but managed fourth on the stage at 26 seconds after a strong push from Geraint Thomas, which moved Wout Poels into fifth overall.

The BMC team of the race leader Patrick Bevin started last, and looked fastest of all the teams on the flat, but with Callum Scotson and Jempy Drucker dropping off the pace, they had no option but to wait for Stefan Küng when the young Swiss rider struggled in the final kilometres, and could be seen holding back to let him regain the string. Their 40 second deficit gave them sixth place and dropped Bevin to fourth overall.

Among the surprises of the day were a youthful Great Britain team who placed 10th, giving some of the WorldTour teams a run for their money. On the other hand, EF Education First-Drapac had a nightmare, finishing only 17th, with a deficit of 1:44 which dropped Hugh Carthy to 16th overall at 1:51, and losing both their sprinters Sacha Modolo and Dan McLay, who would have been expected to be contenders in the weekend’s flat stages but were outside the 30% time limit for the stage.

Results :
1 LottoNl-Jumbo 0:19:37
2 Quick-Step Floors 0:00:17
3 Katusha-Alpecin 0:00:21
4 Team Sky 0:00:26
5 Movistar Team 0:00:36
6 BMC Racing Team 0:00:41
7 Mitchelton-Scott 0:00:55
8 Team Sunweb 0:01:06
9 Direct Energie 0:01:10
10 Great Britain 0:01:19
11 Lotto Soudal 0:01:19
12 Dimension Data 0:01:22
13 Team Wiggins 0:01:25
14 Wanty-Groupe Gobert 0:01:28
15 ONE Pro Cycling 0:01:34
16 Canyon-Eisberg 0:01:43
17 EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale 0:01:44
18 Madison Genesis 0:01:50
19 Bardiani CSF 0:02:04
20 JLT Condor 0:02:14

General Classification after Stage 5 :
1 Primoz Roglic (Slo) LottoNL-Jumbo 15:45:04
2 Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Quick-Step Floors 0:00:06
3 Bob Jungels (Lux) Quick-Step Floors 0:00:16
4 Patrick Bevin (NZl) BMC Racing Team 0:00:24
5 Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky 0:00:26
6 Pascal Eenkhoorn (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo 0:00:34
7 Jasha Sutterlin (Ger) Movistar Team 0:00:36
8 Jos van Emden (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo 0:00:37
9 Neilson Powless (USA) LottoNL-Jumbo
10 Cameron Meyer (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott 0:00:42
11 Dmitry Strakhov (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin 0:00:54
12 Christopher Hamilton (Aus) Team Sunweb 0:01:06
13 Scott Davies (GBr) Dimension Data 0:01:32
14 Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:01:36
15 Jonathan Hivert (Fra) Direct Energie 0:01:47
16 Hugh Carthy (GBr) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale 0:01:51
17 Ethan Hayter (GBr) Great Britain 0:01:55
18 André Greipel (Ger) Lotto Soudal 0:01:56
19 Tom Pidcock (GBr) Team Wiggins 0:02:02
20 Dion Smith (NZl) Wanty-Groupe Gobert 0:02:05
21 Xandro Meurisse (Bel) Wanty-Groupe Gobert
22 Jose Joaquin Rojas (Spa) Movistar Team 0:02:12
23 Max Stedman (GBr) Canyon-Eisberg 0:02:20
24 James Shaw (GBr) Lotto Soudal 0:02:31
25 Alessandro Tonelli (Ita) Bardiani CSF 0:02:43
26 Scott Thwaites (GBr) Dimension Data 0:02:50
27 Edmund Bradbury (GBr) JLT Condor 0:02:51
28 Maximilian Schachmann (Ger) Quick-Step Floors 0:02:59
29 Ruben Fernandez (Spa) Movistar Team 0:03:13
30 Connor Swift (GBr) Madison Genesis 0:03:20
31 Eduardo Sepulveda (Arg) Movistar Team 0:03:56
32 Jurgen Roelandts (Bel) BMC Racing Team 0:04:00
33 Stephen Williams (GBr) Great Britain 0:04:01
34 Vasil Kiryienka (Blr) Team Sky 0:04:02
35 Svein Tuft (Can) Mitchelton-Scott 0:04:14
36 Mads WŸrtz Schmidt (Den) Katusha-Alpecin 0:04:18
37 Robert Power (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott 0:04:20
38 Maximiliano Richeze (Arg) Quick-Step Floors 0:04:27
39 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Direct Energie 0:04:36
40 Emils Liepins (Lat) ONE Pro Cycling 0:04:49
41 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Katusha-Alpecin 0:05:03
42 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 0:05:09
43 Matthew Holmes (GBr) Madison Genesis 0:05:17
44 Carlos Barbero (Spa) Movistar Team 0:05:19
45 Paul Ourselin (Fra) Direct Energie 0:05:21
46 Stefan Kung SWI BMC Racing Team 0:05:23
47 James Oram (NZl) ONE Pro Cycling 0:05:33
48 Ryan Christensen (NZl) Canyon-Eisberg 0:06:05
49 Gabriel Cullaigh (GBr) Team Wiggins 0:06:08
50 Andrea Pasqualon (Ita) Wanty-Groupe Gobert 0:06:11
51 Matti Breschel (Den) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale 0:06:49
52 Victor De La Parte (Spa) Movistar Team 0:06:55
53 Maarten Wynants (Bel) LottoNL-Jumbo
54 Caleb Ewan (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott 0:07:12
55 Enrico Barbin (Ita) Bardiani CSF 0:07:18
56 Nils Eekhoff (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:07:25
57 Jay Thomson (RSA) Dimension Data 0:07:41
58 Jaco Venter (RSA) Dimension Data
59 Louis Vervaeke (Bel) Team Sunweb 0:08:21
60 Fernando Gaviria (Col) Quick-Step Floors 0:08:22
61 Giovanni Carboni (Ita) Bardiani CSF 0:08:23
62 Jean-Pierre Drucker (Lux) BMC Racing Team 0:08:42
63 Lennard Hofstede (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:10:02
64 Hayden McCormick (NZl) ONE Pro Cycling 0:10:11
65 Ian Stannard (GBr) Team Sky
66 Ben Swift (GBr) Great Britain 0:10:14
67 Fred Wright (GBr) Great Britain
68 Miles Scotson (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:10:18
69 Lukasz Wisniowski (Pol) Team Sky 0:10:34
70 Mark McNally (GBr) Wanty-Groupe Gobert 0:11:17
71 Mark Downey (Irl) Team Wiggins 0:12:41
72 Jasper De Buyst (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:12:59
73 Romain Cardis (Fra) Direct Energie 0:13:12
74 Nicholas Dlamini (RSA) Dimension Data 0:13:37
75 Taylor Phinney (USA) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale 0:13:44
76 Alistair Slater (GBr) JLT Condor 0:14:12
77 Jens Keukeleire (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:14:47
78 James Fouché (NZL) Team Wiggins 0:15:00
79 Richard Handley (GBr) Madison Genesis 0:15:31
80 Rick Zabel (Ger) Katusha-Alpecin 0:16:08
81 Simone Antonini (Ita) Wanty-Groupe Gobert 0:16:19
82 Erick Rowsell (GBr) Madison Genesis 0:16:28
83 Koen Bouwman (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo 0:16:41
84 Paolo Simion (Ita) Bardiani CSF 0:16:55
85 Moreno Hofland (Ned) Lotto Soudal 0:17:17
86 Matthew Teggart (Irl) Team Wiggins 0:18:48
87 Thomas Baylis (GBr) ONE Pro Cycling 0:18:50
88 Angelo Tulik (Fra) Direct Energie 0:19:08
89 Matthew Bostock (GBr) Great Britain 0:19:35
90 Peter Williams (GBr) ONE Pro Cycling 0:19:39
91 Jonathan Mould (GBr) JLT Condor
92 Tony Martin (Ger) Katusha-Alpecin 0:19:59
93 Thomas Stewart (GBr) JLT Condor 0:20:18
94 Andrea Guardini (Ita) Bardiani CSF 0:20:33
95 Joe Nally (GBr) Great Britain 0:20:52
96 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Dimension Data 0:21:08
97 Andrew Tennant (GBr) Canyon-Eisberg 0:21:18
98 Chris Froome (GBr) Team Sky 0:21:21
99 George Pym (GBr) Madison Genesis 0:23:10
100 José Neves Fernandes (Por) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale
101 Christopher Latham (GBr) ONE Pro Cycling 0:23:32
102 Dexter Gardias (GBr) Canyon-Eisberg 0:23:50
103 Rory Townsend (GBr) Canyon-Eisberg 0:23:54
104 Phil Bauhaus (Ger) Team Sunweb 0:24:04
105 Adrien Petit (Fra) Direct Energie 0:24:08
106 Roger Kluge (Ger) Mitchelton-Scott 0:24:21
107 Jonathan McEvoy (GBr) Madison Genesis 0:25:12
108 Thomas Moses (GBr) JLT Condor 0:26:09
109 Alex Paton (GBr) Canyon-Eisberg 0:26:55
110 Nils Politt (Ger) Katusha-Alpecin 0:29:46
111 Iljo Keisse (Bel) Quick-Step Floors 0:30:07
112 Graham Briggs (GBr) JLT Condor 0:30:29
113 Vincenzo Albanese (Ita) Bardiani CSF 0:36:55