Tour of Britain Men to be screened live in full on ITV next week

The upcoming Tour of Britain Men will be shown live on ITV4, British Cycling has announced.

All six stages of the race, sponsored by Lloyds Bank, which begins next Tuesday, 3 September in Kelso, Scotland will be covered live from start to finish, with commentary from the platform's Tour de France commentators Ned Boulting and David Millar, as well as presentation from Matt Barbet.

ITV4 will also show a one-hour highlights programme each evening, with both the live coverage and the highlights available on catch-up on its ITVX platform.

International fans can also enjoy free live coverage of the Tour of Britain on British Cycling's YouTube channel, which is not subject to geo restrictions. There will be more international broadcast details available ahead of the start next week.

The Tour of Britain, which is ranked UCI 2.Pro, features an impressive line-up of teams and riders, with Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe (both Soudal Quick-Step), plus Paris Olympics MTB champ Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) set to line up in Kelso on Tuesday.

Bahrain Victorious, dsm-firmenich PostNL, Uno-X Mobility and Israel PremierTech will also be fielding teams, along with domestic representation from Saint Piran, Trinity Racing, and the GB national squad.

After the demise of previous organiser SweetSpot, it had looked as though the Tour of Britain could be in doubt. But British Cycling has taken the reins, bringing in changes including reducing its length to from eight to six stages to give parity with the new Tour of Britain Women.

The 182km hilly first stage in the Scottish Borders starts and finishes in Kelso before the race crosses the border to England for another tough stage that takes the riders 152km from Darlington to Redcar.

Things even out a little for an undulating 166km third stage from Sheffield to Barnsley, before things flatten out for stage four's 138.5km between Derby and Newark in the Midlands.

The race culminates in a pair of relatively flat outings. Stage five – 'The West Northamptonshire Stage' – is based on Northampton and takes riders on a 146.9km exploration of the county, before returning to finish in the city.

The Tour of Britain entourage then moves to Suffolk for a trip down the coast from Lowestoft to Felixstowe. With just 817m elevation in 158.4km, it's the flattest stage of the race and should offer a nailed-on sprint finish to end proceedings.

Last year's winner was Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), with his team-mate Olav Kooij winning four sprint stages.