Oscar Onley loses in a sprint for stage 2 win but is "happy with how he raced", creating all the decisive moves

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL is having one of its better periods of the season with their youngsters Max Poole and Oscar Onley finally back on the track for the last push in this season. Poole finished on a Vuelta stage podium three times and his colleague Onley was no further from winning a Tour of Britain stage today.

The hilly course on the coast side near Middlesbrough favoured attackers and the 21-year-old Scot was up for the job. Onley provoked the decisive attack at 50 kilometers to go, which bridged towards the breakaway. There he was assisted by teammate Oliver Peace before launching another attack at 10 km mark.

Only Julian Alaphilippe and Stephen Williams were able to follow the dsm-firmenich PostNL rider. But Onley would have preferred to arrive solo. In the sprint, he didn't show the sharpest elbows and got himself a bit boxed in, crossing the line in third place. In general classification, this moves him to second overall (as Alaphilippe lost time the previous day).

"The boys did a really good job again today, Oli covered the first moves when the race opened up and was really useful when I bridged across with a few others. I wanted to try and make the group as small as possible to make things tactically easier and managed to get away with two others before the finish. I got myself boxed in the sprint which was annoying but I’m happy with how I raced," Onley looked back at the stage.