The british week
From next Sunday, September 4, to the following Sunday, September 11, the UK hosts its biggest men's stage race. This is the AJ Bell Tour of Britain (.Pro), which in 8 days will travel from the north, in Scotland, to the Isle of Wight, on the southern edge of England.
Route
As we were saying, the AJ Bell Tour of Britain 2022 presents a route in 8 stages, of which 5 have been categorized as intermediate by the race organizers (stages 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8) and 3 as flat (stages 3, 5 and 7). The first stage, however, could have been categorized as a mountain stage, as the finish at the Glenshe ski resort (8.4 km at 3.1%, last 5 km at 4.8%) can already rule out some of the candidates for the general classification on day one.
Favorites
The British team Ineos Grenadiers plays at home and features a very strong line-up led by local star Thomas Pidcock (600), veteran Richie Porte (600), Italian sprinter Elia Viviani (600) and former world champion Michal Kwiatkowski (400). In addition to Pidcock and Porte, Michael Woods (800), Maximilian Schachmann (600), Dylan Teuns (600), Anthon Charming (200), Matteo Jorgenson (400) or Felix Grossschartner (600) are also GC candidates.
For sprint finishes, Viviani looks like the man to beat, but he's not the only sprinter on the starting list: Cees Bol (400), Timothy Dupont (200), Filippo Fiorelli (200), Marco Haller (200), Matthew Walls (200) or Rasmus Tiller (200) are also usual suspects in the sprints.