CYCLING – TEAM Bahrain Victorious featured two riders in the top 10 yesterday in the fifth and penultimate stage of the 21st Tour of Britain.
Afonso Eulalio from Portugal and Pello Bilbao from Spain were both part of a leading group of 13 in a sprint to the finish. Eulalio narrowly missed out on a podium appearance after completing the 133.6-kilometre leg in fourth place, just metres behind winner Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quick-Step, who posted a time of three hours seven minutes and 56 seconds. Bilbao, meanwhile, came ninth, also not far behind the top three, which also featured runner-up Thomas Gloag of Team Visma-Lease a Bike and Oscar Onley of Team Picnic PostNL.
Their exploits helped Bahrain Victorious rise to first place overall on the teams’ ranking with one stage remaining. They have a lead of more than two-and-a-half minutes from their closest challengers Anicolor-Tien 21, while three-and-a-half minutes behind were Ineos Grenadiers.
Amongst Bahrain Victorious’ other competitors yesterday, Edoardo Zambanini from Italy – fresh from his third-place podium in stage four – claimed a solid 22nd place yesterday, while Briton Fred Wright was 38th. Slovenians Matevz Govekar and Zak Erzen rounded out the team’s finishers in 86th and 106th, respectively.
Heading into today’s sixth and final stage, Eulalio and Bilbao put themselves in position to challenge for the individual race win or an overall podium. Eulalio climbed eight places to sixth on the general classification (GC), where he is now just 12 seconds from leader Romain Gregoire of Groupama-FDJ. Bilbao followed suit, rising 14 spots to ninth and 17s behind Gregoire.
Today’s concluding leg covers 112.2km, starting from Newport and ending in Cardiff.
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