Sean McKenna’s OVO Energy Tour of Britain Diary – Stage 4 Mansfield to Newark-on-Trent (164.7k)
It was a class day. (Jacob) Scotty played an absolute stormer again.
The start was proper hard. We had a 16-kilometre neutral section which was nervous enough because it started raining. The first 10 kilometres of the race were just up and down, pretty steep little climbs and fast technical descents.
It was quite difficult but Scotty is really, really good with that. I don’t think he was outside the top 10 for the first 10 kilometres and then the break went which he got into.
The climb wasn’t until late but he absolutely nailed the sprint. He was showing his numbers the other day and for a lad of his weight, his sprint is absolutely class, he’s absolutely flying at the moment.
So, that was brilliant to see him get that jersey. It was one of the aims of the team at the start of the week, to get a jersey so hopefully he can keep it. We have it now, so that’s a start.
The break had a decent gap and coming into the last twenty or thirty kilometres, they still had two and a half minutes so the big boys panicked a bit and it started to get really fast. It was a flat enough road so the speed like the previous days was really, really fast and it ended up being a bunch kick.
We were pretty disappointed to miss the break yesterday but for Scotty to get the KOM points was class. He’s saving us a bit this week.
Stage 5 (ITT) Tendring – Tendring (16.2k)
Today was one of those days that you just have to get done. I haven’t done much on the TT bike this year. Today was the first TT I’ve done on the bike this year. So, it was just a matter of getting around and making the time cut. Technically, I was always going to struggle as I wasn’t used to the bike.
The two track lads on our team, (Mark) Stewart and (Regan) Gough did decent rides. They were just over a minute behind the fastest times which goes to show you how fast the top lads go.
Mark won the individual pursuit in the Europeans, three or four weeks ago, and he’s well able to ride a TT bike and Lars Boom beats him by a minute and a half. These lads are pros for a reason, they’re a touch of class.
