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Ethan Hayter is packing more into his 23rd year than most people do and after his team Ineos won the Tour of Britain 18km team time trial in the south of the Wales, he added the lead in his home lap to six stage wins and an Olympic silver medal this season. He is entering Wednesday’s extremely difficult mountain stage through the north of the Principality with a slim lead over the two favorites in the race, Wout Van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe.
The 22-year-old from south London won the overall Tour of Norway standings a few weeks ago but competition on the British Tour is at a different level and on Wednesday the long and steep finish climbed the Great Orme above Llandudno, a margin of 16sec over Van Aert and 23sec over Alaphilippe offers little leeway. “It will be difficult to control, we will face it, but better to be 16 seconds ahead than behind,” said Hayter.
Considering what season the Londoner has had, whether or not he retains the lead at the Elm, before the race reaches Aberdeen on Sunday, there is a good chance he will add more wins to a record which already makes him the most prolific winner of Ineos this season. So far in 2021, he has run six stage races and he has achieved stage wins in five of them.
Overnight race leader Robin Carpenter of the United States managed to challenge his own doubts by hanging on to his teammates at Rally Cycling, but their 11th place finish at the National Botanic Gardens in the Country of Wales in Camarthenshire meant they were way outside the bigger picture. , and he slipped to 12th place overall.
A successful team time trial seems completely transparent, but in fact there is little room for error and misfortune or miscalculation can be costly. Van Aert left his teammate Pascal Eenkhorn with a puncture in the front wheel, causing the Jumbo-Visma team to lose time in the last kilometer while waiting for the Dutchman to catch up.
The British team Ribble-Weldtite hit well over their weight in eighth place, but an early puncture from Simon Wilson cost them time, although they enjoyed a perfect run compared to the WorldTour team Qhubeka Nexthash, who split into two groups of two on the last hill and went the last mile trying to figure out who was where.
Alaphilippe’s Deceuninck-Quick-Step team were tied with Ineos at the halfway point, but their time trial specialist Tony Martin is falling short compared to Ineos specialist Rohan Dennis, the medalist of the individual time trial silver in Tokyo; their second place, however, leaves the world champion perfectly balanced with many climbs remaining to give Hayter the biggest test of his brief but extremely promising career.
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