Yates continues British success
TOUR OF SPAIN: TITLE ALL BUT CLINCHED ON SATURDAY
Madrid
Simon Yates stepped out of the shadows of British cycling giants Sky on Sunday to secure his maiden Grand Tour triumph at the Tour of Spain for his Mitchelton team.
Yates, who came close to winning this year’s Giro d’Italia, all but wrapped up overall victory on Saturday after the final mountain stage.
After a largely processional final stage to Madrid on Sunday claimed by Elia Viviani in a bunch sprint, the 26-year-old Englishman triumphed with a winning time of 82hr 5min 58sec, Enric Mas finishing second overall at 1:46 and Miguel Angel Lopez completing the podium.
It was Yates’ first victory in a three-week race and comes months after the stinging disappointment of losing the Giro d’Italia, having controlled the race for much of the opening two weeks last May.
On that occasion, Sky leader Chris Froome capitalised on Yates’ collapse in the mountains to secure the race’s pink jersey and seal his third consecutive Grand Tour after winning the Tour de France and Tour of Spain in 2017.
Froome’s Grand Tour-winning streak came to an end in July, when team-mate Geraint Thomas, who also honed his skills on the track, upset the Kenyan-born Briton to triumph at the Tour de France.
Yates’ win on Sunday meant British riders have dominated all three Grand Tours in 2018.
He also took Britain’s impressive streak of consecutive Grand Tour victories to five; although it won’t be lost on British cycling aficionados that it was the first British win outside of Team Sky.
Yates was only 17 when Sky was formed in 2009 with the ambition to “win the Tour de France, clean, with a British rider within five years”.
While Bradley Wiggins was on route to achieving that objective within three years, in 2012, Yates was a budding track rider whose efforts earned him a place on British Cycling’s Olympic Programme.
Yates, Froome’s team-mate at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, won his first world title on the track three years later, in the points race.
At the Tour of Britain later that season, Yates took what was his biggest career win when he sprinted clear of a select group of strong climbers which included Wiggins and Colombian Nairo Quintana to claim victory on stage six.
With spaces on Team Sky at a premium, Yates joined the Orica-GreenEdge outfit in 2014 – a move that has indirectly led to his most recent successes. –