Race organisers are blaming Brexit and funding challenges after the latest Tour of Britain was labelled “boring” by critics with repetitive, flat stages and the lack of participants a noticeable feature of this year’s edition.

The peloton was thinned out in the race which finished on Sunday with victory for Wout van Aert and that was due to Britain’s departure from the European Union, according to the race director Mick Bennett. Only 96 riders started the race in Altrincham last week, and Bennett told Cycling Weekly: “It’s purely and simply Brexit.”

“Just to give you an example,” he added, “it took some teams that rode the world champs [in Glasgow] five hours to get their vehicles, technical teams through customs at Dover, and that was only three weeks ago. And they go, ‘Hang on. You know what? It’s not worth it’. So they didn’t, but that’s purely and simply down to Brexit.”

There was also criticism online about the general uniformity of the stages, with the cycling pundit and former British champion Brian Smith speaking for many when he took to ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, after Olav Kooij, who went on to win four in a row, had triumphed for two days running: “2 more flat stages of the Tour of Britain … can we fast forward, award Kooij the next 2 stages and look forward to some racing?”

In the end the five flattish stages to start the Tour were all won by the Jumbo-Visma team, which served to heighten the discontentment among many cycling fans. Bennett said he had become so fed up of the constant carping that he had eventually decided to ignore it. He was especially critical of those close to the sport who hit out at the perceived failings of this Tour, saying it was “frustrating … when you get criticised by the so-called cycling cognoscenti who think we are just purely there for their entertainment”.

Bennett complained that the volume of criticism was “hard to hear”. He went on: “I can’t stand it because they don’t understand the bigger picture that we have had to deal with. Because the country is in such a difficult financial situation, we’re in such a state now that local authorities are being bled of the funds from central and local government. Because the country is in a situation where, you know, local authorities are prioritising spending elsewhere, they’re going to say, well, that’s our priority and we fully understand that.”

The Tour of Britain was also hampered financially by the lack of a race sponsor after last year’s backer, AJ Bell, withdrew their support for the event.