Tour of Britain 2024 Stage 1

September 3, 2024 The Scottish Borders stage starts in Kelso Scotland for 180KM of rolling country roads before coming back to Kelso for a likely sprint finish over rough cobbles. Julius Johansen of Sabgal-Anicolor, Callum Thornley of Trinity Racing, and Callum Ormiston of Global 6 United got up the road to make the break of the day. Ormiston was dropped from the break with around 75KM to go as Johansen and Thornley increased the pace as their gap was coming down to 1 minute 30 seconds. Soudal Quickstep led the peloton with the newly gilded Remco Evenepoel in their ranks for his first racing back after his double Olympic gold. The speed in the bunch really increased as they approached the Scott's View climb with 38KM to go. The bunch exploded on the climb but as riders bridged to the front, the group got too large and the peloton was mostly back together. With 32KM to go, the gap to the two leaders was down to 40 seconds. Thornley sat up after having picked up as many mountains points as possible, leaving Johansen to go off solo. Julian Alaphilippe of Soudal Quickstep attacked on the Dingleton climb with 25.5KM to go and catching Johansen in the process. No selection was made and the pace came back down. Wout Poels of Bahrain-Victorious was the next big attacker but Evenepoel closed the gap down and set a controlling pace. At least 60 riders were together after the descent. Tobias Foss of Ineos got control and rode on the front for almost 20KM to keep things together for a sprint. Baptiste Veistroffer of the Decathlon AG2R Development Team took a flyer at 6KM to go but was caught 3KM later as the lead outs were going warp-speed downhill to the final kilometer. Things got very aggressive between Ineos, Soudal Quickstep, and Israel-Premier Tech, each fighting for the left side of the road to take the optimal line through the final corner. Soudal Quickstep won the corner and Paul Magnier set off with 175M to go. No one would come around Magnier as he rattled over the cobbles for the win. Ethan Vernon of Israel-Premier Tech took second place with Robert Donaldson of Trinity Racing taking third.