Britain’s Adam Blythe delivered a perfectly timed sprint to take a surprise victory in a sodden Prudential Ride London-Surrey Classic cycling race on Sunday.
A long-time breakaway group of five were together entering the final few hundred meters of the 200km course on The Mall, but 24-year-old Blythe of the lowly NFTO team blasted out from the back, catching his favored rivals unawares.
He had enough momentum to stay ahead of fellow Briton Ben Swift of Team Sky and Omega Pharma-QuickStep rider Julian Alaphilippe.
Photo: AFP
Torrential rain left the course puddle-strewn and some of the riders failed to stay upright in the early stages as the treacherous conditions and narrow country lanes took their toll.
However, as the route, much of which was used during the London 2012 Olympic Games, dried out, an 11-man breakaway took place that included 2012 world road race champion Philippe Gilbert.
That was trimmed to five to set up a superb finale as the main peloton, including 2012 Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins, was unable to pull the breakaway group back.
The race completed a memorable weekend of cycling in the capital, which earlier in the day featured 24,000 amateur riders tackling a sportive over much of the same course after Saturday’s freecycle event where 55,000 riders enjoyed 16km of traffic-free roads in the center of the city.
In a high-quality women’s Grand Prix race on Saturday, Italy’s Giorgia Bronzini beat favorite and 2012 Olympic road race champion Marianne Vos in the final few meters.
TOUR OF UTAH
AP, PARK CITY, Utah
Tom Danielson defended his Tour of Utah title on Sunday, while former Tour de France champion Cadel Evans proved he is coming into form by winning his second consecutive stage.
Evans, who was tuning up for the Vuelta a Espana, won a sprint out of a five-man breakaway ahead of Wilco Kelderman and Winner Anacona to capture the mountainous seventh stage.
Danielson followed a few seconds later, waving to the crowd in Park City as the Garmin-Sharp rider celebrated his second overall win.
The win should give Danielson a big confidence boost as he heads to the USA Pro Challenge in Colorado.
Jure Kocjan won the points competitions as the top sprinter, while Joey Rosskopf was awarded the king of the mountains jersey. Dylan Teuns was the best young rider.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later