Oscar Onley races to third on stage 2 of Tour of Britain

Oscar Onley raced a very attacking second stage of the Tour of Britain to finish third at the end of the stage, launching himself up the GC into second place and best young rider. Onley made the jump for the final selection, going clear with two others from a powerful breakaway of eight riders in the last 10 kilometres, with the trio staying clear to sprint out the victory.
In the build up to this point, Onley’s teammate Oliver Peace, also racing on home soil, was present at the front of the race, bridging across to the day’s early break of six riders before being joined by Onley’s further bridging group which attacked from the peloton on the undulating parcours. Peace gradually dropped off the pace at the front, leaving Onley in a select group that pushed clear and eventually finished with one minute and twenty seven seconds over the main peloton.
Only tried his luck on multiple occasions in the build up to the finale, trying to get clearer of some of the fast finishers he had found himself at the front of the race with, eventually dragging two others clear. His result moves him into the lead of the young rider’s classification and into second overall, six seconds behind the race leader going into tomorrow’s third stage.
After the stage, Onley commented: “The boys did a really good job again today, Oli covered the first moves when the race opened up and was really useful when I bridged across with a few others. I wanted to try and make the group as small as possible to make things tactically easier and managed to get away with two others before the finish. I got myself boxed in the sprint which was annoying but I’m happy with how I raced.”
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Pim Lightart added: “Today on paper it was the toughest stage of this Tour. The goal was to have Oscar in a position where he could race for the stage win. The team did a good job with Oliver first up going forward in a move. Then, the others did a good job setting Oscar up to make the jump forward on the last categorised climb. In the final Oscar rode aggressively but smart. Tomorrow with a difficult final we will try to move up one more spot in GC.”