Highlights from stage eight of the Tour of Britain 2023, held between Margam County Park and Caerphilly on Sunday 10 September.
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00:00 166.8 profoundly hilly kilometers would mark stage 8 from Margam Country Park to a finish,
00:08 a famous finish on the Tour of Britain at Kea Philly and a double ascent of Kofili Mountain.
00:14 Pensive looking Wout van Aert in the leader's jersey with a slender buffer of just 3 seconds
00:19 on the front line of the grid as they rolled out into the neutralized section through Margam
00:24 Country Park knowing that the race would come for him and after a day on stage 7 when Jumbo
00:30 Visma showed some uncharacteristic frailty everybody smelt blood. Ineos Grenadiers with
00:36 Magnus Sheffield on the front in the white jersey just watching as the usual suspects went on the
00:41 offensive including James Fouché who wanted to get up the road in the black King of the Mountains
00:46 jersey to seal the deal in the competition he had led all the way from stage one. Bingo as well
00:53 proving ambitious on the day and wanting to get in any breakaway in the early moves that Harry
00:58 Tanfield was involved in as well as this man Abram Stockman who hit the front and eventually
01:02 with DSM also very active a six rider break did get up the road. It was animated by Kasper van
01:11 Ouden at the front who saw a group of select riders getting across to him including almost
01:16 inevitably Abram Stockman, Max Walker from Trinity Racing, James Fouché the King of the Mountains,
01:23 Johan Meens from Bingo and Olly Wood in the Colours of Great Britain. At Cowbridge the
01:28 intermediate sprint of the day they rolled through and unopposed Kasper van Ouden took
01:34 the only sprint of the day before up the uncategorized climb of Bulge the race was
01:40 neutralized due to a non-racing incident a road traffic accident that had blocked the road.
01:44 They then had to come off the race route and under a neutralized pace with the time gap being
01:50 preserved between the six riders at the breakaway and the peloton they rejoined the race route
01:56 close to the first climb of the day categorized climb of the day at Ricos. At that point the
02:01 breakaway had a three minute advantage but as the race route restarted Carlos Vero and Movistar
02:08 started to ride hard at the front of the peloton to put everybody under stress. At the top of the
02:14 first climb of the day though James Fouché picked up a maximum 10 points almost mathematically home
02:19 and hosed but not quite in the King of the Mountains competition that would eventually go
02:24 his way and then a crash over the top of the climb in the wet weather conditions Liam Johnston going
02:29 down heavily from Trinity Racing and caught up with one of the riders from Team DSM and as the
02:34 rain receded and the sunshine came out Ineos Grenadiers then started to ride aggressively
02:39 setting things up eventually for a big attack that would shape the back end of the race.
02:44 The breakaway then started to fall apart it was Max Walker who attacked first
02:48 before Johan Mains countered and came across to him and Johan Mains then eventually riding
02:56 Max Walker off his wheel to be the last surviving rider of the breakaway. It was Carlos RodrÃguez
03:02 of Ineos Grenadiers then who attacked and he was joined by Stevie Williams of the Great Britain
03:09 team who had looked so effective on stage seven when he sprinted to third place and the real
03:14 danger man on GC Stevie Williams. They went over the top of the Brindy climb with a decent advantage
03:20 over Wout van Aerts in a chase group from which Gonzalo Serrano close to the top attacked as they
03:25 hit the descent with a time gap of over a minute to make up on Stevie Williams by now emphatically
03:31 the virtual race leader by some substantial distance. But RodrÃguez and Williams uncertain
03:38 as to whether to sit up or not eventually decided to push on and that forced on the flat approach to
03:44 the finishing circuit in Caerphilly a group to come together and a combination of different teams
03:50 to try and eat into the time gap that they had as they then hit the climb of Caerphilly mountain
03:55 for the first of two ascents within the final 15 kilometers of the finish line. Meanwhile behind
04:01 teams with multiple representation included the team Q36.5 who were using Joey Roscoff to try and
04:08 close the gap in the services of Damien Housen and Mark Donovan to some effect as well but still as
04:14 they went over the top they hadn't been caught at which point over the top of the penultimate climb
04:20 of the race Carlos RodrÃguez left Stevie Williams who was dropped by the Spanish rider from Ineos
04:25 Grenadiers as Wout van Aert led the way in a chase group which then opened up the race to a series of
04:30 counter-attacks on the run in though to the second assault of Caerphilly mountain the chase group came
04:37 back together again and Wout van Aert sat on the front in the knowledge that no one would work with
04:41 him a double digit lead in terms of seconds for Carlos RodrÃguez over the top of Caerphilly
04:46 mountain for the second time and Wout van Aert with three riders all at three seconds sitting
04:52 on his wheel including Tobias Johannes and Damien Housen and Magnus Sheffield. The time gap for
04:58 Carlos RodrÃguez as he took the win wasn't enough for him to climb to the top step of the podium
05:03 but the victory was secure from the moment that he attacked Stevie Williams. Meanwhile behind
05:08 and finishing in second place Wout van Aert managed to hold on to the general classification
05:13 he finished in second Carlos RodrÃguez won the race though by 11 seconds. Zeb Kiffin finishing
05:19 in seventh place and Zeb Kiffin in sixth in the general classification too but Wout van Aert wins
05:25 the race by three seconds to Tobias Johannes and Damien Housen in third. For the second time
05:31 in three years Wout van Aert wins the Tour of Britain in handsome style.