Australian Orica-GreenEdge rider Leigh Howard seized back the leader’s gold jersey in the Tour of Britain as Team Sky’s Mark Cavendish slipped back badly in Thursday’s fifth stage, which was won by Marc de Maar.
UnitedHealthcare’s de Maar of the Netherlands made a break for the front with 6km of the 147km ride around Stoke-on-Trent remaining, making the move only 4km after crashing to the ground.
He crossed the finishing line alone, with Sep Vanmarcke of Garmin-Sharp winning a sprint finish for second place 15 seconds further down the road.
Cavendish fell away from the peloton in the hills and he could not stay close enough to retain his overall lead.
The Manxman dropped all the way down to 35th in the general classification, with Howard seven seconds ahead of Dutchman Boy van Poppel atop the standings.
“I rode an aggressive race. I had some attacks myself, and luckily I had good legs and could stay with those at the front,” Howard told the BBC. “I’ll be having a few problems up the climbs and I can’t see myself still in the gold jersey by the end of the week, but I’m going to try.”
“I knew Cavendish was struggling with the climbs early in the stage, so when the crunch came I knew he wasn’t going to go,” he said. “When the break happened, I just made sure I went with them.”
Meanwhile, a delighted de Maar said: “We were planning for a sprint, but there was a bit of movement, I suddenly saw a gap and decided to keep on going.”
“I had a rough start to the Tour. I was involved in two crashes and I was thinking about going home,” he said. “I’d come to contend the general classification, but lost four minutes in one stage. I lost motivation, but it looks like I have found it again.”
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Reuters, LONDON
Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins could be a doubt for the world championships next week after pulling out before the sixth stage of the Tour of Britain with illness yesterday.
Team Sky said on their Twitter feed that the Olympic time trial gold medalist had a stomach bug.
The men’s road race at the worlds in the Netherlands province of Limburg takes place a week tomorrow when Wiggins’ British team will be hoping to defend Cavendish’s title.
British Cycling confirmed their lineup yesterday, with Olympic time trial bronze medalist Chris Froome chosen for both Wednesday’s time trial and the road race.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS