Steve Cummings took the final stage at the Tour of Beijing as Tony Martin won overall

The peloton were forced to push hard in the closing stages but were unable to ride down a spirited move from Cummings (BMC Racing) and Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp), the pair having linked up on the final climb of the day to stay clear.

Cummings had enough in the tank to out-sprint the Giro d'Italia winner on the line in Pinggu, with Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) leading home a reduced peloton 17 seconds later.

Comfortably among that group was Martin, the Omega Pharma - Quick-Step rider holding on to take a second consecutive win in the event by 40 seconds over stage three winner Francesco Gavazzi (Astana).

An attacking performance and some valuable bonus seconds on the day saw Boasson Hagen move up to third to round out the podium, a further six seconds back.

The final WorldTour race of the season got off to a rapid start as the riders tackled the 182.5-kilometre test.

After two early climbs attention turned to the first intermediate sprint in Bohai, Boasson Hagen extending his advantage in the competition to six points, but more significantly moving level on time with Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp).

After the opening flurry a move was finally allowed off the front, a sizeable nine-man breakaway allowed little over 1:30 by the chasing pack.

There were numerous attacks on the final climb of the race - the Si Zuo Lou summit - with Hesjedal jumping clear and linking up with Cummings, the sole survivor from the original break.

The pace picked up behind as attacks fired off, leader Martin and team-mate Dario Cataldo covering off the moves but there was no catching the lead pair at the finish.