Sunday’s final stage of the Lloyds Bank Men’s Tour of Britain ended in Cardiff, and saw Team Bahrain Victorious finish third & fourth on the day as well as clinching the overall Team Classification for the 2025 edition of the race.

In the breakaway all day, and only caught by the bunch a few metres from the line, Fred Wright stepped onto the podium as the day’s ‘Most Combative Rider’, before his teammates joined him in front of a huge crowd, as Bahrain collected the prize for winning the ‘Best Team’ classification.

It has been a very solid week for Bahrain, with seven top ten results and Afonso Eulálio sixth in the General Classification, just 12 seconds behind winner Romain Grégoire.

As the peloton rolled in to the Welsh capital, all eyes were on former Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas (IGD), riding one of his last races as a professional having had such a magnificent impact on cycling in Wales. The multiple Olympic and World gold medallist was honoured throughout the event, and this last stage started from the velodrome that bears his name. We at TBV pay tribute to the phenomenal career of a true legend in our sport. Chapeau ‘G’!

On the road meanwhile, Wright was fighting for victory with his breakaway companions as they crested the first category Caerphilly mountain, and while the Englishman came incredibly close, it wasn’t to be his day.

“Today was a very active race from the start,” reflected Sports Director Aart Vierhouten. “Many teams were trying from the off on a short and hard stage, made harder because of torrential rain and the 5 previous stages. There were many attempts and then on the hard part Fred was active and really pushing together with Tronchon from Decathlon. They got two other guys as companions, one really strong UAE rider, Johansen, and then another one from Kern Pharma (Mats Wenzel) who was playing for the GC. So the reaction came from the peloton.

We had a plan and a tactic to try to move up in GC to do something on the last climb which had one hard kilometre. With Pello as captain we kept our tactics despite Fred being in front, and I think we did everything right, especially Afonso. We really tried to go across to Fred and then do a final effort for both the GC and the stage. 

It ended up different on the top: the best five riders on this kind of parcours were together with Alfonso and then Pello came back with four others, so from then on we tried to stop the racing so Fred could fight for the stage win. It worked until 25 metres to go, but the high speed of the group and Fred’s long push from the start made it just 20 metres too long this time. But what a great fight from Fred and from the team behind him.”

It has been a strong performance by all six riders here, from the youngest, Žak Eržen (19), to Pello Bilbao (35), and the others in between: Eulálio (23), Edoardo Zambanini (24), Matevž Govekar (25), and Wright (26). The riders now disperse across the world for the closing acts of the year, in Canada, Spain, China, Belgium and Italy.

Despite not adding to our win tally for the season, Vierhouten felt it was a promising week spent in the predictably unpredictable British climate:

“We showed a good spirit today as we have all week, and if you don’t try, you never know! We had to give it a go with Alfonso and I think we did everything to move up on GC and also to keep the door open for the stage win. 

We came close this week. We missed the cherry on the cake, but all of us feel that it is coming closer and closer, and now in the coming races we must get the win we need in the team.”

While the Tour of Britain drew to a close, the Vuelta a España reached the end of its second week with a hilly 15th stage between A Veiga/Vegadeo and Monforte de Lemos. Santiago Buitrago was one of the main protagonists in a large breakaway, and sprinted to 4th from a reduced group. 

The peloton – containing Torstein Træen – rolled in 13’31” later. It was a tough day on the bike for the Norwegian who wore the leader’s jersey for four days, but thanks to a phenomenal effort from his teammates, the 30 year old was able to hang on to his place in the top ten overall.

After a second rest day, the final Grand Tour of the year returns with a challenging 168 km from Poio to Mos. Castro de Herville