The consensus beforehand was that the uphill finish in Harrogate lent itself perfectly to the talents of Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis), and the Frenchman lived up to his billing with a resounding sprint victory on stage 2 of the Tour de Yorkshire.
By reputation, only Caleb Ewan (Orica-Scott) might have expected to live with Bouhanni on this kind of a finale, and the Australian duly came through to take place second on the stage and move into the blue jersey of race leader, even if his grip is a tenuous one with the tough final stage to Sheffield still to come.
For the second day running, Bouhanni opened his sprint from further out than he would have liked, but the scales were tipped in his favour by the terrain. On Scarborough’s windswept seafront on Friday, Bouhanni floundered to finish fourth, but he made light work of Parliament Street’s incline on Saturday, punching his way past Jonathan Hivert (Direct Energie) to take the win. Hivert managed to hold on for third place, while Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) took fourth ahead of Christopher Lawless (Great Britain).
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“I had good legs yesterday too, but it was more tactical and I had to launch my sprint from too far out,” Bouhanni said. “Today the sprint was just about having the legs.”
Bouhanni’s confidence in his strength was obvious. Hivert had looked to surprise the favourites by jumping his way clear with more than 400 metres to go, but where the other sprinters hesitated, Bouhanni moved swiftly and decisively. He cruised up to Hivert and then scorched past him with 200 metres to go.
“I made my big effort with around 350 or 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. As simple as that.
How it unfolded
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