Tour de Yorkshire hopes to tempt Cavendish

2018 parcours favours the fastmen

The organisers of the Tour de Yorkshire hope that two flat stages for the sprinters on next year’s route will attract fastman Mark Cavendish to the race for the first time.

The race was given permission to expand from three to four days earlier this month and last week organisers unveiled the eight start and finish towns.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Peter Dodd, commercial director of race co-organiser Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “You’ve got two flat stages that will suit some of the world class sprinters; whereas when it was a three-day race and there was just one day, you now have two days in four and that changes the dynamic.”

When asked to elaborate, he said: “We’re trying to get big name riders, whether it’s Chris Froome, Mark Cavendish or Marcel Kittel.”

Cavendish has not raced in Yorkshire since crashing out on stage one of the Tour de France in 2014.

However, Dodd said the Tour de Yorkshire was also a “dress rehearsal” for the World Championships that will be held in the region in 2019. He added that the final stage of next year’s race would be “a beast of a stage” to decide the general classification.

Meanwhile Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, told the Yorkshire Herald last week: “We want to get Chris Froome to ride the race. I think Chris would like to come and ride the Tour de Yorkshire and we would love to have him.”

Dodd also said that the race organisers have no ambition to expand the race to more than four days and that the women’s race, which is also being expanded — would likely remain at two days for the foreseeable future, largely due to the logistics of running two races on the same day.

The Tour de Yorkshire will visit Richmond, Leeds, Scarborough, Beverley, Ilkley, Barnsley, Halifax and Doncaster in 2018.