Adam Blythe (Tinkoff) denied Mark Cavendish a second British national road race title as he outsprinted the Manxman at the end of an aggressive day in the north east of England.
Cavendish, who will try to claim the yellow jersey on the opening day of the Tour de France next week, was the favourite as a 14-rider group that came towards the line for a sprint and it was he who opened it up. However, Blythe, who had been part of a long four-man breakaway before limiting his workload on the final laps once caught by Cavendish's chase group, took his wheel before brushing shoulders and coming past him on the slightly-uphill drag to the line.
The 26-year-old Tinkoff rider punched the air and celebrated wildly as he crossed the line for what is probably the biggest result of his career. Andy Fenn, whose Sky teammate Alex Peters had attacked repeatedly to shake up the closing stages of the race, was a more distant third.
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“I wanted that one, I was thinking about it all day, trying to be in the right moves,” said Blythe, who won’t be at the Tour de France but is instead set to debut his white, red and blue champion’s jersey on home soil at the RideLondon-Surrey Classic later this summer.
“With a couple of laps to go I thought we might hold off the chasers, it was hanging around 20 seconds and I did a few hard turns, but it came back together and I just gambled it’d be a sprint and luckily I got round Cav.”
The 207km course was based on two circuits – a main 13.4km loop to be covered 12 times before a 6.7km finishing loop in Stockton to be covered six times – and it produced the aggressive and chaotic racing that has come to characterise national championships.
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