It wasn't hard to work out who Tom Gloag's parents were at the finish of stage five of the Tour of Britain. Amid the mild maelstrom caused by Remco Evenepoel's victory, there was a couple screaming "TOM, TOM" at the side of the road, heard over the top of everything else.
They had a lot to shout about. Their son had just pushed Evenepoel to the end, finishing second on The Tumble, his first top-two at a bike race since his stage win at the Czech Tour last year.
It's super nice, I've had a rough period since February," the Visma-Lease a Bike rider told British Cycling after the stage. "I've not really been able to find some good shape, which is quite a while to be struggling for, near the back end of races. I've definitely lost some confidence and I could feel it already yesterday, and I was held up in a little crash so I lost a bit of time, which meant I had good legs but I wasn't competitive on GC. Already then I could feel like I was at the front end of the race again, and you race with a different confidence when you know you have the legs.
"Today, I was fortunate enough to give it a go, at one stage I thought Matty [Brennan] was going to be able to sprint for the win, but he was just slightly off the group. I was on Remco's wheel, and not strong enough to come round, but second was the best I could hope for today."
2025 has been beset by illness and injury, with the 23-year-old unable to finish the UAE Tour, Coppie e Bartali or Itzulia Basque Country in the spring. Given he has already come back from a career-threatening injury after he was hit by a car driver in 2023, it has not been easy, and therefore Saturday's result is a cause for celebration.
"If you had a quick look at my ProCyclingStats it's been a while since I've been at the front of a bike race, so I'm very chuffed with second," Gloag said.
"It was special finishing here on The Tumble, we've done it a lot at the Junior Tour of Wales, so it was an absolute pleasure being here, my parents were here too.
"It was a special day, and I've always wanted to get a result here, it's nice to be at the pointy end. It's a hard race to do well in."
His second place should set him in good stead moving forward, with Gloag hoping for more with what is left of this season.
"Things change a lot at the end of the year, but I've got Slovakia, some Italian one-dayers and then China," he explained. "I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into the end of season races."
Gloag was not the only young Brit at the front of the bike race on Saturday, with Picnic PostNL's Oscar Onley finishing third, after attempting to get away on the final climb.
"The race wasn't as hard as we expected, it all came back together before the bottom of The Tumble the last time," he said post-stage. "There was quite a strong headwind up the climb, which made it quite diffficult to break away, but I tried with [Pavel] Sivakov and a Bahrain [Victorious[ rider, but with the wind it was hard to stay away. I gave it everything I had in the sprint, but without going on the attack before... I tried."
