The Tour of Britain 2014 in Liverpool
Photographs by Patrick Trollope.

THE Tour of Britain started on 7 September 2014 in a very sunny Liverpool. The race is the UK's biggest professional cycle race and billed as the "country's largest free to watch live, as spectator, sporting event." And what an event it was... Sadly, for one rider, Mark Cavendish, a Manxman who had only recently returned from the shoulder injury he sustained on the opening day of the Tour de France, in Harrogate he found himself heading back to hospital. This time it was down to his crashing into a Rapha Condor-JLT team car, mid-race and hitting a mechanic. Despite the crash, all went well for other teams and Germany's Marcel Kittel won the opening stage of the Tour, with Britain's Mark Cavendish in 3rd. Italy's Nicola Ruffoni came in 2nd place, following a hard 8 laps (104.8km) race around the City Centre. Photos are now available for media use via our site. On the Monday however, the Stage 2 of the Tour - Knowsley to Llandudno, Cavendish was back on the saddle and pushing hard. To find out the full results from each of the stages and also to discover more about this fantastic, The Friends Life Tour of Britain 2014, visit:- TourOfBritain.co.uk. These are a few of the photographs and some video from the event. If you attended, please let us know what you thought of it via emailing us to news24'southportreporter.com. Here at Southport and Mersey Reporter, we considered the event highlighted Liverpool's fantastic City scope to the nation extremely well, with good coverage on the TV partner ITV's Live broadcast and also on the BBC's highlights, not forgetting the other stations and media groups who poured into the City to cover it. The only downside was the traffic problems it caused, but you can overlook that as it brought in far more trade and showed Liverpool to be a fantastic place. Also taking part on the day was the Sky Ride that used part of the route the tour was following. That was a fantastic build up to what was a stunning display of cycle racing, with tyre to bumper action throughout!  

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