Tour of Britain winner Wout van Aert insists the week exceeded expectations after claiming four stage wins en-route to overall glory.
Van Aert won a sprint finish on the Esplanade on Aberdeen on Sunday to cap a quartet of victories and pip Ethan Hayter to the top of the leaderboard.
The pair had been duelling at the top of the standings for most of the week but the Team Jumbo-Visma rider sealed victory by claiming a bonus 10 seconds on offer for the stage eight win.
Van Aert said: “It was a really fast finish. I needed all of my guys to close the gap with the breakaway – I couldn’t do it on my own. After their impressive work it was a pleasure to finish it off.
“It’s definitely a lot more wins than I expected when I came into this race. I hoped to be there on a few stages but taking all these wins is beyond expectations for me.
“The crowds along the road everywhere – throughout the week there were so many people at the side of the road and I really missed that over the last couple of months, two years, with Covid.”
It continues a successful year for the Belgian, who won the national championships in his homeland, three stages of the Tour de France and a silver medal in the men’s road race at the Tokyo Olympics.
He added: “When I came into this season I hoped to have three really good blocks of racing. It’s always dangerous to expect to be on top of your game at every single moment, so I’m just happy I have this in the bag already.
“It was a challenging race. They were very strong and it’s always hard to race, no matter where. They pushed me to the limit.”
Van Aert crossed the line in a time of 4:07:56, with Germany’s Andre Greipel in second and Mark Cavendish in third.
Hayter started the day with a four-second lead and had been in the driving seat for the overall win after triumphing on stage five.
However he finished outside the top 10 in the sprint finish and was ultimately pipped to the title by six seconds.
Hayter said: “It’s obviously a disappointing end to the week but he won four stages, so he probably deserved to win overall in the end.
“Coming into the week, if you’d said we’d win the team time trial, the Manchester stage and finish second overall and win points classification, it’d be an amazing week.
“We got to the front and let a few guys go. We were a bit concerned if it would all kick off on the Cairn o’Mount but we just rode up at, as there’s a big headwind so it was quite controlled.
“We were riding up the first climb and we were all next to each other, which was quite cool. We were all keeping an eye on each other.
“This year has exceeded expectations for me and for a lot of people I think. I couldn’t have asked for better really.”
The winning overall time for the tour was 31:42:22, with Hayter six seconds back and Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe 27 seconds further behind in third.
A breakaway packed emerged early on Sunday, after the departure from Stonehaven. Robin Carpenter, Jokin Murguialday, Ben Healy, Thomas Gloag and Michal Paluta broke away from the rest of the pack early, with Paluta leading the peloton through Finzean.
Rally Cycling's @RobinmCarpenter is having too much fun on the @SKODAUK King of the Mountains climb of Cairn o'Mount!
📺 Watch stage eight live on ITV4#TourOfBritain 🔵⚪🔵 pic.twitter.com/3QQvXwbLEi
— AJ Bell Tour of Britain 🇬🇧 (@TourofBritain) September 12, 2021
Gloag took the sprint points as the leading pack came through Aboyne and with 85km to go, Carpenter led the way through Ballater.
Paluta was first up the final King of the Mountains stage at Queen’s Hill, with the peloton 2:15 ahead of the rest of the pack.
However the advantage had been cut to less than a minute inside the final 20km as the championship chasers reeled them in.
After coming back into the city through Westhill, the leaders surged towards the finish on the beach front with van Aert sneaking ahead of the rest.