Did you know Mark Cavendish’s two stage wins in 2011 made it the best Tour of Britain for British riders since 2007, when he also won two stages.
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The 2011 Tour of Britain
· Mark Cavendish’s two stage wins made it the best Tour of Britain for British riders since 2007, when he also won two stages.
· Steve Cummings equalled the best overall performance by a British rider, coming second, equalling his finish in the 2008 Tour of Britain.
· Jonathan Tiernan Locke’s total of 71pts in the ŠKODA King of the Mountains competition is the highest ever winning total in the competition.
· In winning the ŠKODA King of the Mountains Jersey, Jonathan Tiernan Locke became the first rider racing for a domestic trade team to win a jersey.
· The AN Post team took a dominant 1-2-3 in the Yodel Sprints classification, the first time a team have taken the top three spots in a classification at The Tour.
· Last year’s Tour was only the second Tour of Britain where an Italian rider has failed to win a stage. 2007 was the other.
Distances
· At 1,349.9 kilometres 2012 will be the longest edition of The Tour of Britain, exceeding the previous longest (2011) by 94.6 kilometres.
· By the end of the 2012 edition, riders will have covered over 9,525 kilometres of British roads since the first edition of the modern Tour in 2004.
· The East Anglian stage of The Tour of Britain will once again be the longest of the race, at 199.6 kilometres.
· Stage Eight will be the second longest final stage in Tour of Britain history at 147.7 kilometres. The longest was the 2007 finale from Dumfries to Glasgow, at 156.6 kilometres.
· The longest stage in Tour history was Stage One, from Manchester to Manchester, in 2004 covering 207 kilometres. The shortest was the Crystal Palace Prologue in 2007 at just 2.5 kilometres.
The 2012 Tour of Britain
· There are eight new venues for this year’s Tour of Britain – Ipswich, Norfolk Showground, Knowsley, Jedburgh, Barnstaple, Dartmouth, Reigate and Guildford.
· Both Nottingham and Carlisle return to The Tour of Britain having last hosted stages in 2005. For Nottingham it will be their first stage start.
· This will be the first time The Tour of Britain has started in East Anglia.
· Blackpool has been on included on the route of every Tour of Britain, with the exception of 2007.
Records
· Edvald Boasson Hagen (below) is the most successful rider in Tour history, with seven stage wins. Second is Mark Cavendish with four victories, while two riders (Andre Greipel and Alessandro Petacchi) have three stages to their name.
· Riders form 16 different nations have won Tour of Britain stages since 2004. Italy have the most victories (11), followed by Great Britain (9) and Norway (8).
· The former HTC team have the most stage victories, with 17 accumulated in their various guises (TMobile/ Columbia/HTC). The first by Sergei Ivanov in 2005 (St4 from Buxton to Nottingham), the last
RELATED LINK: Tour of Britain Website
