Tour of Britain 2014 – Stage 4 Preview
By David Hunter
Stage 3 Recap
On The Tumble, Jack Bauer went first. He was quickly followed by Zardini and the two built a good gap. Bauer wasn’t able to help with the pulling, so Zardini went solo. Nico Roche was the man to attack from the GC group and he caught and past Zardini. Grinding a massive gear, Roche, didn’t manage to get clear and Zardini soon caught him. The Italian surged on and took a tremendous stage win. Kwiatkowski attacked with 500m remaining, to take second, with Roche third. A bad day for my picks of Konig and Bongiorno!
Stage 4 Worcester – Bristol 184.6km
Potential breakaway day!
The riders are faced with a challenging day, 3 categorised climbs and plenty of uncategorised ones too.
The lumpy nature of the day, will certainly test the legs of the sprinters and gives the breakaway specialists a chance to impress. It will be very interesting to see who tries to control the race. If no threat on GC is in the break, Bardiani, will be happy to let it, and the bonus seconds, go, but the other teams might work themselves. A few sprinters will like the nature of the day and a potential bunch sprint. Remember, this isn’t a grand tour, so the pace of the peloton is slower and less riders lose contact.
The final climb of the day is only 700m long, but has an average gradient of 9.4%, this will encourage attacks. It crests with 2.2km to go, but the road continues upwards.
The final 800m is uphill and not good for a rider who goes solo on the final climb.
The final climb is split in two and it’s hard. Following that the road goes through a park, with a big sweeping left turn, before the finishing straight. The road is quite narrow, so it won’t be easy to return riders to the front, if they lose ground, on the climb.
Two riders who will try for the break are Mark McNally and Manuele Boaro. Both seem interested in the KOM jersey and the Italian is particularly strong just now. The break won’t be easy to get into, as quite a few teams have riders far enough down on GC. Another contender is Pablo Lastras.
Kittel was climbing poorly, on stage 2, so this climb looks too hard for him, but not for Cavendish. He’s in some discomfort, after crashing on stage 1. If he feels okay, this is a nice finish for him. Also looking good for this are Ben Swift, Sam Bennett. Tyler Farrar and Sonny Colbrelli.
The GC riders will have to be careful on the final climb, as Chavanel will be on the hunt for seconds he lost today. He will be fairly satisfied with today, and keen to get back into the overall race. IAM will help to try and get some bonus seconds too.
Prediction time…
This looks like one for Chavanel.
David Hunter
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