Tour of Britain: Steve Cummings encouraged by gains on rivals
Monday 5 September 2016 20:35, UK
Steve Cummings believes he has put himself in a “good position” to claim overall victory at the Tour of Britain.
The 35-year-old Dimension Data rider was beaten into second place by Julien Vermote on stage two, but made significant time gains on all of his rivals for the yellow jersey.
With a summit finish and a 15km individual time trial still to come, he leads Dan Martin by 58 seconds, Tom Dumoulin by 1min 6sec and Rohan Dennis by 1min 11sec.
Cummings told cyclingnews.com: "Obviously I was going for the stage from the start, but with who I was with, the best option was to then gain time on the others. I was racing for time in the end rather than the stage.
"We just go day by day because it's so difficult to control. I've put myself in a good position, but it could all turn around again tomorrow."
Cummings looked stronger than Vermote after the pair had attacked out of an elite lead group with 11km to go, but he had no response when the Belgian rode away from him inside the final 200m.
Cummings added: "He was giving me what he could and he is a really good lad and a super racer. He is such a good worker and I'm happy for him because he deserved it after being in the break all day."
The Tour of Britain continues on Tuesday with a 179.4km third stage from Congleton to Tatton Park in Knutsford. Find out more about the route in our race guide and follow all the action with our live blog from 1pm BST.
