Matt Teggart has put in a huge shift off the front at the Tour of Britain today; once again winning all the intermediate sprints before being one of the last two breakaway men standing. He even beat the king of the mountains leader for points after he bridged across to the move.
WiV-SunGod rider Teggart was clearly fully recovered from his breakaway ride of yesterday and looked even stronger today, when the field took on stage 2 - some 175.2km from Hawick to Duns. He now holds a commanding lead in the sprints classification and is up to 3rd in the climbers classification.
After a lumpy finale - with three climbs back-to-back - the fight for stage honours came down to a bunch sprint from a 60-strong peloton. Cess Bol (Team DSM) just pipped Jake Stewart (Great Britain) on the line, with race leader Corbin Strong (Israel Premier Tech) in 3rd place.
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Teggart, who was caught with 20km to go, eventually finished in 77th at 11:14, with his team mate and Irish road race champion, Rory Townsend, placing 102nd at 15:55.
However, today's stage, for Teggart, was all about getting up the road and trying to retain his sprint classification jersey. On the road today the Irish rider considerably enhanced his prospects of winning that classification. As was the case yesterday, when the early move went, Teggart was in it.
That group was also comprised of Ribble Weldtite's Charlie and Harry Tanfield along with Adam Lewis (Saint Piran), Ukko Peltonen (Global 6) and Travis Stedman (Qhubeka). While their gap went out to five minutes, staying away to the finish - with three climbs packed into the final 25km - always looked like a tall order.
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However, Irish international Teggart was not concerned with that and instead set about winning the three sprints; after 42.6km at Morebattle, after 76.2km at Coldstream and at Reston after 117.8km. His breakaway companion Stedman was 2nd to Teggart at all three sprints and now the Irish rider leads the classification on 18 points - having won all six sprints so far - from Stedman, who has six points.
After Teggart had mopped up the last of his points, his six-rider breakaway split on the first of the late climbs - Wanside Rigg at 151km. When breakaway man Lewis pressed on the pedals on the steepest slopes, he and Teggart pulled clear of the other four. They kept it going nearing the climbers' prime at the top, as the peloton led by Richie Porte (Ineos Grenadiers) closed in.
The man in the climbers' jersey, after being in the stage 1 breakaway with Teggart, Stephen Bassett (Human Powered Health) jumped from the reduced peloton and closed in on Teggart and Lewis. However, while Bassett looked like he had the prime won, Teggart came back at him and took maximum points.
While the Irish rider then pressed on alone out front for a short period, he was eventually caught by the bunch. His team mate Jacob Scott then took a leaf out of the Irishman's book; collecting points on the last two climbs and claiming the climbers' jersey to add to the sprints classification jersey within the WiV-SunGod team.
Tomorrow's stage is a testing 163.6km from Durham to Sunderland, which Teggart will go into with a secure lead in the sprints classification but looking to take more points.
