The uphill finale on Harrogate’s Parliament Street has an unspoken resonance for Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis). In 2014, his final campaign at FDJ, he was part of a very public internal competition with Arnaud Démare for the role of sprinter at the Tour de France, missing out after his fierce rival won the French title in Futuroscope.
A week later, Bouhanni watched forlornly on television as the first yellow jersey of the Tour was decided by a sprint in Harrogate that seemed perfectly tailored to his characteristics. On the eve of this Tour de Yorkshire’s visit to the same site, Bouhanni watched the footage once again, examining how Marcel Kittel claimed the win, and perhaps silently cursing how he had missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime.
On Saturday, Bouhanni finally sampled Parliament Street for himself, and delivered a powerful sprint effort to claim a resounding victory on stage 2 of the Tour de Yorkshire. The victory was all the more impressive given that Bouhanni was forced to open his effort from much further out than planned after Jonathan Hivert (Direct Energie) looked to steal a march on the favourites.
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“I had to launch my sprint early. I went from a long, long way. I made my big effort with around 350-400 metres to go when I saw Jonathan Hivert had attacked. I reacted behind and got back up to him, and then I won,” Bouhanni said afterwards.
In Scarborough on Friday, Bouhanni had also been pressed into sprint action ahead of time and eventually faded to place fourth. On this occasion, the terrain was better-suited to a solo effort. He cruised up the final slope to the line, and the fast-finishing Caleb Ewan (Orica-Scott) was unable to make any real inroads into his advantage.
“We went from too far out yesterday. We wound up for the sprint for too long, and with 700 metres I only had one rider with me. There was a side-wind and they were able to get back up to me because I made too much of an effort before the final metres,” Bouhanni said. There were no such problems on Saturday. “Today was quite a difficult stage all the same, it was quite hilly. But in the finale, I was always well placed in the first fifteen positions.”
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