Cyclingheroes

Tour of Britain : Goss wins in Wolverhampton

Matt Goss takes the third stage... (picture: © Pete Goding)

Picture gallery: Tour of Britain, stage 3, Worcester - Wolverhampton

Mathew Goss of Team CSC took victory on an exciting Stage 3 of The Tour of Britain ahead of Freddy Bichot and Britain’s Roger Hammond in Wolverhampton.

The three riders had been part of a day long break which split up on the final climb of the day, Sutton Bank, and the run in to Wolverhampton, allowing the Australian rider to out sprint Bichot, Hammond and Dutchman Martijn Maaskant at the finish on the St Mark’s section of the Wolverhampton Ring Road.

All four riders were members of a nine man break that went away early in the stage before the first sprint of the day at the Three Counties Showground. Amongst the group were five British riders – Hamish Haynes, Paul Manning, Rob Partridge, Ben Swift and Hammond – though Haynes was soon dropped on the first climb of the day, that of the Malvern Hills.

The break’s lead grew to 6 minutes 28 seconds, with none of the riders posing a threat to overnight Yellow Jersey Nikolai Trusov’s race lead, as Ben Swift of the Barloworld team led the break over the first two E.ON King of the Mountains climbs to take the lead in the classification. Swift will now wear the wear the E.ON King of the Mountains Jersey tomorrow, as the race starts at the scene of his very first bike race, Rother Valley Country Park, something which the nineteen year old described as “very exciting”, admitting he had last night given thought to taking the E.ON King of the Mountains Jersey on the stage from Worcester to Wolverhampton.

There were further changes in the Sprints Classification too as another member of the break, Zak Dempster of the SouthAustralia.com team, rode into the Sprints Jersey by winning all three of the intermediate sprints on the road to take a ten point lead in the Sprints Competition.

At the finish in Wolverhampton it was T-Mobile’s Mark Cavendish who brought the bunch home six minutes behind, to take 9th place on the stage ahead of fellow Manxman John Bellis, while Nikolai Trusov of the Tinkoff Credit Systems team retains both his race lead and the Points Jersey. Speaking afterwards, stage winner Mathew Goss said "It was great finally to win after a number of second and third places. It was a fantastic feeling," said a very happy Matthew Goss after the stage.

"Nine of us escaped and none of the teams had two riders in the group and none of us were less than 11 minutes behind in the general classification, so it was a good group to be in. Towards the end of the stage there were quite a few attacks and three of us got away. One kilometer before the finish three other guys caught up to us so there were six of us sprinting for the victory, but it still turned out quite well though," laughed Goss.

Hammond was disappointed to finish third, but promised to keep trying in his search of stage win number three in The Tour of Britain : “It’s almost the same as two years ago when I missed a split in the crosswinds and the next day won the stage. So I was kind of hoping for the same today, but I just didn’t have it. I didn’t come here to be a number. I came here to be one of the best in the race”.

Rotherham’s Rother Valley Country Park will be the starting point for tomorrow’s Yorkshire stage named after Jane Tomlinson who died on 3 September after a long battle with against cancer.  Tomorrows fourth stage will finish in Bradford’s Lister Park.

Race reports