Stage Three of the Tour of Britain - Durham to Sunderland

Stage 3, 163.6km and ever-changing weather conditions lead to a challenging but rewarding day. Alexander Richardson was in the breakaway all day with a quartet of riders maintaining a gap to the peloton till the end – his instrumental efforts in forming this breakaway gain him, the Aydele Combativity award and 3rd place in today’s stage.

We caught up with Alex after his podium to get him to share his thoughts on the day's stage -“We discussed as a team last night how we could get the breakaway to stay till the line – however today, it wasn’t a great day but I thought we had just enough for it to get to the line – if you took the outbound leg easy you get into the break and then as you turn into the crosswind keep the power on – ride the crosswinds easy and then keep the power on in the crosswind section on the descent to the middle and latter third of the race then it was a tailwind running to the finish. I was a little bit sceptical as I didn’t think the break was big enough and potentially it was a difficult combination as two riders were on +14 seconds on general classification which was no good and at the start, I said there was no point I’m going to go back but in the end, we came to an agreement that we would sit up after the mountains and sprints at 160kms. The Belgian didn’t stick to his word, unfortunately, so I sat on after that The breakaway still managed to get to the line and I came away with 3rd”

Performance director, Liam Holohan who followed the break-in team car 2 added “The plan at the start was to have Alex or one of the other riders in the breakaway. Alex was in a breakaway with 4 others, and it wasn’t ideal as two others of the riders were +14 seconds on the general classification which would mean that the General Classifications teams would want to chase the break. So, Alex spoke to the riders and set an agreement that two of them would sit up once the sprint and king of the mountains points were passed and that is what they did, and they pushed their advantage in the cross-wind section to 5mins before the tailwind section which was all in the plan and it was all going well. Sadly after, the king of the mountains and sprint points were passed the other riders in the breakaway didn’t stick to the agreement, so we decided with Alex to sit on and saved his energy to try and get away for the finish. We knew he wasn’t the fastest guy there but he sat tight on whilst the other riders continued to work as they theoretically were in the yellow jersey at that point. They worked well together and maintained their advantage till the end when Alex tried to attack but with the tailwind and the terrain nearing the finish it didn’t suit for a late break and it came to a sprint. A nice result for the team but we had real ambitions of winning today and the plan was executed so well we had high hopes for the finish. But that’s bike racing that’s why it’s exciting!”

A second successive combativity award for the team and a third-place finish. A tremendous effort by all our riders and staff. A massive congratulations to Alex on his award!

Tomorrow, head to Stage 4 Redcar to Duncombe Park, Helmsley ready for another day of excitement in the UK’s biggest professional bike race!

Pictures: SW Pixs & Global Vision 3D