Yorkshire ultimate winner of drenched tour
IT MAY already be defined by the challenging downpours, but by the time this year’s Tour de Yorkshire finished in the heart of Leeds, it was all sun and smiles.
The fourth stage closed on The Headrow in the West Yorkshire city yesterday after setting off from The Piece Hall in Halifax, and sealed Team Ineos’s Chris Lawless as the first Briton to be crowned the overall winner of the race. Last year’s outright winner, Belgian Greg Van Avermaet, however, took the final stage.
But Peter Dodd, commercial director of Welcome to Yorkshire, at the end of the race declared: “Yorkshire is the winner.” He acknowledged riders had to face “challenging conditions” but said that the region had done itself proud.
The race, now in its fifth year, was set up after the Tour de France’s Grand Depart took place in Leeds in 2014 at the same spot where proceedings closed yesterday. The Tour de Yorkshire has since become one of the top events in the region’s calender.
Riders visited all four corners of the county over four days, taking in 150 villages, seaside towns and major cities along the way. The race had earlier been upgraded to HC status by cycling’s world governing body the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) – the highest category possible for a multi-day race outside of the UCI World Tour.
IF ANY picture summed up the latest celebration of world-class cycling to come to Yorkshire this last few days, it is the one above.
Driving rain, spray kicking up from the wheels, cyclists with their faces contorted against the incoming monsoon and an iconic Yorkshire landmark in the background.
As Tours de Yorkshire go, the fifth annual staging of the county’s legacy of hosting the Tour de France in 2014, had everything. Crashes, drama, horrible weather, the occasional outbreak of sunshine, crashing waves breaking onto the riders and an even an oil spill.
For the romantic among us, the Tour de Yorkshire also provided moments to warm the heart and lift the spirits; Lizzie Deignan’s face lighting up when she was greeted by her seven-monthold daughter at the finish line in Bedale, children in school yards pictured by the helicopters above riding their bikes, and Mark Cavendish waving his way along Parliament Street in his mother’s home town of Harrogate.
The Tour de Yorkshire really is an event for the whole community to enjoy.
It is a free-to-watch experience that proves time and again that you do not have to be a cycling afficianado or even a sports fan to come out and enjoy the spectacle.
The Tour de Yorkshire really is an event for the whole community to enjoy, young and old.
And this year the race revisited familiar surroundings and discovered new territories.
The Bridlington to Scarborough stage is becoming as common in the Tour de Yorkshire as curry sauce is in a northern chippy.
The Piece Hall in Halifax to a finish on The Headrow in Leeds is a finishing stage the organisers want to become known as The Yorkshire Classic.
Both the climbs on those stages, the terrain and the elements ensured for a brutal couple of days in the saddle for the world’s best male and female cyclists.
But new ground was discovered with a first finish in the idyllic market town of Bedale and a skirting of the city of Hull, as the Tour de Yorkshire covered the length and breadth of this great county.
The standard of the field was as high as ever; deep with talent in the women’s race and highlighted by superstar names in the men’s race.
Chris Froome and Cavendish joined Deignan and Anna van der Breggen in headlining the races; riders who have won everything their sport has to offer, coming to Yorkshire to sample the punchy climbs, the challenging parcours and experience the warmth of the Yorkshire welcome.
Five years on from the Grand Départ of the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire, the county’s affection for cycling burns as brightly as ever, as witnessed with roadsides and villages as busy as ever.
And with the UCI Road World Championships to come to the White Rose county in September, the year 2019 really is one to cherish.
If only we can do something about the weather...