Photo credit: SWPix.com
The final day of racing at the Tour of Britain saw a flat parcours to Felixstowe to contend with, but with some blustery wind conditions, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL set out with a plan to try and spice things up and create some chaos. From the start it was a fast race with multiple teams looking to make the break but eventually a four rider move broke clear. However, coming through a town at 80 kilometres to go the team strung things out and the bunch exploded on the narrow country lanes afterwards.
With Sean Flynn, Emils Liepins and Oscar Onley in a front group of around 30, the rest of the squad marked things out in the chasing group. The gap held steady at around one minute, but as teh race turned into a headwind it reduced ever so slightly. A crash in the chasing group saw Casper van Uden and Oliver Peace held up, which meant that only Bjoern Koerdt returned to the front. Coming into the finale the team were active in following and making attacks but nothing could stick, so it was clear the day would end in some type of sprint finish. In the chaotic run-in, Flynn fought hard to cross the line in tenth place on the day; a position he moved up to in the overall standings come the end of the day. Onley was able to secure second overall too and with that win the best young rider’s classification, after a strong week of riding by the team.
Speaking after the stage Flynn said: “Today with the strong winds we wanted to try something. Everyone committed and we caused some chaos in the crosswind sections which really split the peloton. In the end we weren’t able to catch out William’s and move Oscar up but we defended his second place on GC and are happy with how we rode aggressively, which also led to me moving up into the top top overall as well.”
