Tour of Britain hits back at race criticism after Wout van Aert seals overall victory

Mick Bennett, race director at the Tour of Britain, has hit back at criticism of this year’s race after Jumbo-Visma’s Wout van Aert was crowned winner of the 2023 edition at Caerphilly Castle on Sunday.

Bennett said the race’s critics “did not understand the bigger picture” of putting on an eight-day race in the current economic climate, admitting the Tour of Britain was still very much “treading water” post-Covid.

Jumbo-Visma won the first five stages of this year’s race, the first four via sprinter Olav Kooij before Van Aert himself took over the race lead with a late solo attack into Felixstowe on stage five.

Many fans, and even riders such as Ines Grenadiers’ Tom Pidcock and pundits such as former British champion Brian Smith, criticised this year’s race, saying the race featured too many sprints and was too predictable. Others criticised the lack of time bonuses this year which meant the top general classification riders shared the same time until stage five, and were only separated by three seconds by the end of the race.

Bennett described such criticism as “frustrating”. “Not everybody is a fan of cycling,” he told Telegraph Sport after Sunday’s finish. “They don’t all understand the complexities involved in putting on a race. And I get that, and respect that. It’s when you get criticised by the so-called cycling cognoscenti who think we are just purely there for their entertainment.”

Bennett said that with cuts to funding, local authorities were not exactly queueing up to host stages, and those that did were able to demand specific days. Also, with a limit of two hours driving between stages written into the terms of the race, that dictated to a large part where the race was able to go and when.

“We are not in a position yet to tell [potential venues] ‘Sorry, you have to take that stage on this day.’ These are difficult times. Regretfully we had to cancel the Women’s Tour this year. And the Tour Series. We are still treading water post-Covid. We need a big sponsor really. Another Aviva or AJ Bell. Perhaps an energy company… But I think we did a good job in the circumstances.”

Bennett argued the race this year, which featured just 96 riders, had also suffered due to Brexit, which put some teams off coming to the UK. “We’ve just finished the world championships in Glasgow and it took some of the teams four hours when they got to Dover to complete their paperwork [to leave the country],” he said. “To have that again [coming back] three weeks later… And then you’re up against the Vuelta a España, [Grand Prix Cycliste de] Montréal, [Grand Prix Cycliste de] Quebec, which are on at the same time…”

Van Aert was put under pressure over the course of a hillier weekend in Gloucestershire and Wales, although sadly not by Pidcock who pulled out of the race on Saturday with saddlesore.

Instead it was his Ineos Grenadiers’ team-mate Carlos Rodríguez who took it to Jumbo-Visma on the final day, escaping with local rider Stevie Williams on the climb of Bryn Du with just over 50km remaining.

Although Williams faded in the final kilometres, Rodríguez clung on for the stage win with Van Aert second over the line, 11 seconds later, to seal the general classification by three seconds.

Bennett said the race would “look carefully” at whether to include time bonuses next year. “If we’d included them this year, the same team [Jumbo-Visma] would have been even further ahead this year,” he argued. “We are trying to create a close race. This is all about attracting viewers to our wonderful sport.”