Dates have officially been announced for the 2011 Tour of Britain, which will for the first time include England, Scotland and Wales in one edition of the UK’s biggest professional cycle race.
Next year’s race will begin in Scotland on Sunday September 11, finishing in London eight stages later on Sunday September 18 and will once again be categorised as a 2.1 event by the UCI.
The details of the route will be announced in the spring. This year’s race saw HTC-Columbia’s Michael Albasini crowned as champion, while team-mate Andre Greipel bagged a hat-trick of stage victories.
Riders were full of praise for the event, with Richie Porte saying via Twitter that, “the Tour of Britain was an awesome race, most enjoyable race so far this season”, while King of the Mountains winner Johnny Hoogerland described the Tour as “a beautiful race.”
Race director Mick Bennett said: “I thought the racing this year was superb. Credit for that must go to the teams and riders who rose to the challenge of a tough course.
“All the feedback from riders and teams has been very positive and extremely complimentary, which indicates that the Tour of Britain continues to grow, as it has each year since 2004, when we brought this amazing event back onto the UK sporting calendar after an absence of five years.
“In Michael Albasini I think we have a very worthy champion, who displayed a lot of grit and determination to uphold the honour of the yellow jersey, even when unwell in the middle of the week.
“I look forward to welcoming Michael and his HTC-Columbia team back to the 2011 Tour to defend their title.
“The race also presented us with several riders to keep an eye on in the future, for example fourth placed finisher Richie Porte, who was at the forefront of the action all week, and stage four winner Wout Poels.
“In 2006 a young rider by the name of Andy Schleck won the King of the Mountains title at the Tour of Britain.
“Now he is one of the world’s leading riders and should win the Tour de France in the coming years and I believe both Richie and Wout could follow in his footsteps.”
The 2010 race saw more than one million spectators line the roads, while the daily highlights on ITV4 attracted an average reach of 401,000 viewers per night and a DVD is in the pipeline.
