Dylan Groenewegen kicked off the Tour de Yorkshire with victory on the opening stage for the second year running after negotiating a late crash to take the honours in Scarborough.

A crash for Orica Scott’s Magnus Cort Nielsen with around 200 metres to go made for a chaotic finish, but Lotto NL Jumbo rider Groenewegen avoided the chaos to outsprint Caleb Ewan, with BIKE Channel-Canyon’s Chris Opie, from Cornwall, coming in third.

On a day when eight riders had initially broken away, it always looked as if the peloton would bring it back for a bunch sprint, the first time that has happened in the Tour de Yorkshire on the stage to Scarborough.

And Groenewegen coped best with the tricky finish to just edge out young Australian Ewan on the line and give his team a first win of the season.

“It was really nice,” said Groenewegen, who won the opening stage in Settle a year ago. “It was a really hard race, and on the last climb it was a little too hard for me but the team was waiting and brought me back to the first group. I sprinted for the win after the team did a really good job. It was a really good day and we won.

“It’s a really nice race with a lot of people. I’m here for the second time which is nice. It’s a really good race and the team did a great job. The only thing is that (Steven) Kruijswijk has crashed so I hope he’s ok for the last day and for the Giro of course.

“The sprint victory was the important thing. We did that to win our first race of the season which was the important one. I’m really happy with that.”

Saturday’s stage between Tadcaster and Harrogate is set to be another opportunity for the sprinters to make their mark.

However Team Sky directeur sportif Servais Knaven has warned that it could yet be a harder stage than it appears with Sky hoping that general classification contender Tao Geoghegan-Hart can shake off the cuts and bruises he picked up from the crash late on.

Knaven explained: “It looks easy on paper (on stage two) but it’s not an easy day with 1700 altitude metres with only 120km so it’s not going to be easy.

“The guys all hope that Tao is ok and they are looking forward to stage two. Tao has bruises and skin off but he’s ok. We’ll see how good he is, he’ll have a free role here and he’ll go for the general classification.

“This is his chance, it’s a perfect race for the young guys to see where they end. That can be top three, top five or maybe he does really well and finishes tenth so it’s hard to predict.

“Stage two is not going to be easy but of course Sunday is going to be the hardest day so it’s about the legs.” 

Yorkshire Bank is an Official Partner of the Tour de Yorkshire and the ground-breaking Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries initiative. Visit www.ybonline.co.uk/tdy