Paul Magnier exploits ‘mousehole’ to take fourth stage of Tour of Britain

The list of previous Tour of Britain winners in Newark is short, but it points to a promising future for the Frenchman Paul Magnier, who took his second stage win in four days on the banks of the Trent. Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria (2017) and the Dutchman Olav Kooij (2023) are both sprint names to be reckoned with, and these two incisive victories suggest the 20-year-old Magnier is on the same road.

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This was a finely calculated effort in a slightly less technical finish than in Kelso on Tuesday. The Israel- Premier Tech sprinter Ethan Vernon led out and as the road drifted slightly to the right, Magnier came up the narrow gap on Vernon’s left side, “through a mousehole” as Magnier put it, and the 24-year-old from Bedford resisted the temptation to close the door, giving the Frenchman a clear run to the line.

At professional level, a sprinter depends heavily on the men around him, and Magnier is lucky to be in the same Soudal Quick-Step team as his older compatriot Julian Alaphilippe. “Loulou” played a key role on Tuesday in Kelso, and dragged his teammate into the perfect position in the final kilometre in Newark, just as the Norwegian Jonas Abrahamsen of Uno-X was leading out his compatriot Erlend Blikra, and with Vernon poised to start his final effort.

Earlier, Soudal Quick-Step’s Slovakian Martin Svrcek slogged away for many miles behind the day’s three-man escape, the Irishman Liam O’Brien, Britain’s Rowan Baker and Scott McGill of the US, and after the break had been pegged back. Remco Evenepoel ensured that the race stayed together in the hectic, high-speed final kilometres.

Amid all this Vernon’s team leader, Wales’s Steve Williams, kept a solid grip on the overall leader’s jersey; there was one minor tweak in the standings, with the Cumbrian Mark Donovan strengthening his hold on third overall after taking a one-second time bonus in the day’s only intermediate sprint. With more time bonuses on offer before the race finishes on Sunday, and no hills of note, the intermediate and finish sprints will be increasingly significant.

On the weekend’s flat stages to Northampton and Felixstowe, there is a good chance that Magnier could emulate Kooij’s feat of last year in posting a final tally of four stages; with Alaphilippe and Evenepoel out of the reckoning in the overall standings, that points to a dream scenario for Williams, in which his erstwhile Soudal Quick-Step rivals keep an iron grip on the race to target stage wins, while the Welshman focusses on sealing overall victory.