Tour de Yorkshire - How pep-talk from Dave Brailsford inspired Chris Lawless

It took place almost a year ago in Scarborough, shortly after the third and penultimate stage of the 2019 Tour de Yorkshire.

Lawless, of the newly-rebranded Team Ineos, had just been beaten into second place by Denmark’s Alexander Kamp, and naturally, as a sportsman built to win, he was disconsolate.

Brailsford was with other members of his team preparing for the Giro d’Italia, but received word that his young rider – although having climbed into the leader’s blue jersey on the general classification – was feeling down about himself.

“The night before the last stage he gave me a phone call and gave me a bit of pep talk and it seemed to work,” recalls Lawless.

“He said, ‘there’s two ways this can go, you can either concentrate on the negatives or you can look at the situation we are in’.

“He said I could do it and I just had to believe in myself.

“Dave has shown it at GB cycling, and now with our team. He’s been doing it a lot of years and he’s clearly not just fluking it.

“He’s a good man-manager and knows how to get the best out of the team, whether it’s the staff or the riders. It’s really reassuring for me as a rider. For any one who rides for this team, as long as you buy in and commit fully you’ve got his backing.”

And Lawless took that backing, that unwavering faith in his abilities, and 24 hours later turned it into overall victory, the 23-year-old from nearby Wigan become the first British rider to claim overall victory in the annual race.

In normal circumstances, Lawless would have been lining up in Beverley this morning at the start of a four-day odyssey across Yorkshire in the sixth edition of the race, but the coronavirus pandemic has put paid to that.

“It’s not often you get the chance to ride with the No 1 on your back. Some riders never get that opportunity,” lamented Lawless.

Whenever the chance arises to defend his title, Lawless will do so, but for now he has to content himself with reflections on how he claimed the biggest prize of his road career.

On Sunday May 5, 2019, Lawless safely negotiated the 175km ‘Yorkshire Classic’ stage from Halifax to Leeds, courtesy of some typically strong teamwork from Ineos (formerly Sky) and a bit of opportunism from the man himself.

Because on that day, defending champion Greg van Avermaet – the Olympic road race gold medallist no less – had designs on a successful defence of his title. If Lawless wanted to stand on the top step of the podium and slip his arms into the winner’s blue jersey, he could not let Van Avermaet out of his sight.

“It was harder for the team to win the race without me in that front group than it was with me, so we just tried to control the front group, using guys wisely,” recalls Lawless, of a team’s tactic which saw four-times Tour de France winner Chris Froome working hard on the front for his younger team-mate.

“We just had Ian Stannard off the front most of the day, no one really touched the front other than Michal Golas as we were going on the descent into Otley. We needed a good position going up the Chevin because we knew it could kick-off up there.

“That was the point where we sent Froomey and Eddie Dunbar ahead. I just had to stay as close to Van Avermaet as I possibly could.

“I’d watched the stage from the year before and I knew the run-in pretty well. I knew where there was only really place where Greg could go on his own and that was that little kicker with 5km to go. I just needed to stick to his wheel and that’s what I did.

“A few people knew he was going to go on that climb so it was a bit of a battle for his wheel but I just thought I can’t take any prisoners here, I just fought and fought for his wheel.

“I was pretty surprised in myself that I was able to follow him up that climb.”

From there, a little northern tact was required as Lawless tried to convince Van Avermaet that the race for the GC had been run.

“I said to Greg ‘just come on, give us a turn on the front, we both know the score here’,” says Lawless.

“He didn’t want to at first but he came through in the end.

“That last 5km was a bit of a blur, trying to hold off the bunch, and just trying to hold on.”

Van Avermaet won the stage, with Lawless runner-up for the second straight day, but a winner overall.

“How did I celebrate?,” he laughs. “It was pretty tame. My car was parked in Leeds so I had to drive back across the M62 to Manchester and that was it. But it’s a great win to have.”

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