{"id":6533,"date":"2017-09-02T20:52:22","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T19:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/?p=6533"},"modified":"2017-09-03T00:04:45","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T23:04:45","slug":"ovo-energy-tour-of-britain-2017-pre-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/?p=6533","title":{"rendered":"OVO Energy Tour of Britain | 2017 – Pre Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

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OVO Energy Tour of Britain 2017 Pre Race Press Conference<\/p>\n

Words & Images by Chris Maher.<\/pre>\n
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OVO Energy Tour of Britain 2017 Thomas & Cavendish share a joke.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
With 120 riders<\/a> confirmed for this years eight stage race. The OVO Energy Tour of Britain gets underway in Edinburgh, Scotland tomorrow morning at 1030am before meandering down the East-Side of the country and concluding in Cardiff, Wales on Sunday 10th September.<\/p>\n
Beamed Live on ITV4 television for the first time with an estimated audience of eight-million, the highlights package later in the evening will be broadcast to a 125 countries.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
Mick Bennett, Race Director: \u201cTo have Taylor, Dan, Mark, Geraint, Alex and Caleb here at the Press Conference for me is thrilling. I don\u2019t think we have had such a stellar line up. We have three former World Champions, Six Olympians, Twenty-four stage winner from Grand Tours and countless World, European and National Champions and I\u2019m absolutely delighted.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
 <\/p>\n
Mark Cavendish, Dimension Data: is still recovering from a shoulder injury from earlier in the season. \u201cI have to be realistic, I\u2019m not a machine. I\u2019m not looking for any results here. Team Dimension Data can get results here.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a long-time supporter of the Tour of Britain and as a massive fan of the British fans, the support we have here \u2013 to see it grow over the last \u2013 more than a decade doing this, is phenomenal.<\/p>\n
I had to miss RideLondon because of my injuries. To get here and race at home is always\u2019s something special. So I wanted to at least try, come out, experience and absorb the atmosphere that\u2019s around the Tour of Britain nowerdays.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
 <\/p>\n
Dan Martin, Quickstep Floors: Also recovering from a recent injury. \u201cI feel fine, I feel good. I had to lay off after the Tour. I\u2019ve only been back on the bike two-and-half to three weeks now, getting going again.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got a really strong Team here. I don\u2019t know where I\u2019ll be as far as ambitions. The course is really flat this year. As far as the Teams ambitions go, we can be optimistic, aim high and I\u2019ll be part of that\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
 <\/p>\n
Geraint Thomas, Team Sky: I\u2019ve been back on the bike a couple of weeks now. Just looking forward to the race now \u2013 Cav was saying \u2013 the crowds and stuff are just unbelievable these days, to see how far it\u2019s come.<\/p>\n
The first time I did it was with Cav back in 2005, so yeh, it\u2019s a bit different today.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve got Viviani (Elia) for the Sprints \u2013 there\u2019s a lot of Sprinters here, so yeh, It should be exciting.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
 <\/p>\n
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OVO Energy Tour of Britain 2017 Caleb Ewan, looking for stage victories.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
 <\/p>\n
Caleb Ewan, Orica-Scott: Last time you were here, you won in London. How\u2019s your form? \u201c I think it\u2019s all right. It\u2019s been a long season up and till now. I started early in Australia. I\u2019ve had a good break and a really good year, hopefully my form has come on well for this race.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
 <\/p>\n
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OVO Energy Tour of Britain 2017 Taylor Phinney contemplating this years Time Trial stage 5.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
 <\/p>\n
Taylor Phinney, Cannondale- Drapac: \u201cThere are a lot of Sprinters and Time Trialists here at the Tour of Britain. How much of an objective is the Time Trial on Stage 5?<\/p>\n
Definitely an objective for both myself an Ryan Mullen who\u2019s been targeting this race for a while. For me presonnally, it\u2019s one of my favourite races on the calendar, so I always look forward to coming to the Tour of Britain.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
 <\/p>\n
Alex Dowsett, Movistar Team: The Time Trial roads you must know quite well? \u201c Yeh, it\u2019s close to home. I\u2019ll have lots of friends and family out, which will be good. I went and looked at the course the other week. It\u2019s nice, a good one for me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
 <\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OVO Energy Tour of Britain 2017 Pre Race Press Conference Words & Images by Chris Maher. With 120 riders confirmed for this years eight stage race. The OVO Energy Tour of Britain gets underway in Edinburgh, Scotland tomorrow morning at 1030am before meandering down the East-Side of the country and concluding in Cardiff, Wales on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[1112,70,1034,1114,26,149,950,1115,1116],"class_list":["post-6533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tour-of-britain","tag-ovotob","tag-alex-dowsett","tag-caleb-ewan","tag-dan-martin","tag-geraint-thomas","tag-mark-cavendish","tag-mick-bennett","tag-ovo-energy-tour-of-britain","tag-taylor-phinney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6533"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6565,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6533\/revisions\/6565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrismaher.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}