Tour of Britain: Steve Cummings takes lead as Wout Poels wins
By Matt Westby
Last Updated: 09/09/16 5:58pm
Steve Cummings moved into the overall lead of the Tour of Britain as Team Sky’s Wout Poels climbed to victory on stage six.
Poels attacked with 1.5km left of the 5.7km ascent to the summit finish at Haytor in Dartmoor and hung on to beat Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing) into second place by six seconds and Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) into third by eight seconds.
Cummings (Dimension Data) crossed the line 21 seconds adrift in eighth, which was enough to lift him from second to first in the general classification, after previous race leader Julien Vermote (Etixx - Quick-Step) was dropped earlier in the climb.
Dumoulin rises to 49 seconds down in second place, while Dennis is 51 seconds adrift in third going into Saturday morning's 15km individual time trial in Bristol.
Poels, who was already out of overall contention, said: "It was a little bit more windy and we had a little bit of rain. The last part we took control and we wanted to close the gap to go for the stage victory with me.
"Yogi [Ian Stannard] and Danny [van Poppel] did a really good job, so I was really happy with that. It's my sixth [win] of the season already and it's always nice to win here at the Tour of Britain; last year on the uphill finish and this year again. It's a really nice race."
Saturday's racing at the Tour of Britain is split into stage 7a's time time trial from 10am to just after midday, and then stage 7b's flat circuit race in Bristol from 2.30pm to 5pm. Find out more about the courses in our race guide and follow the stages with our live blog from 11am.
Stage six result
1 Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky, 4:56:15
2 Rohan Dennis (Aus) BMC Racing, +6sec
3 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, +8
4 Dylan van Baarle (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac, +12
5 Xandro Meurisse (Bel) Wanty-Groupe Gobert, +17
6 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky, same time
7 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal, st
8 Steve Cummings (GB) Dimension Data, +21
9 Erick Rowsell (GB) Madison Genesis, +31
10 Gorka Izagirre (Esp) Movistar, st
General classification
1 Steve Cummings (GB) Dimension Data, 27:04:11
2 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, +49sec
3 Rohan Dennis (Aus) BMC Racing, +51
4 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal, +53
5 Dylan van Baarle (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac, +57
6 Xandro Meurisse (Bel) Wanty-Groupe Gobert, +58
7 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky, +1:06
8 Ben swift (GB) Team Sky, +1:14
9 Jacopo Mosca (Ita) Trek-Segafredo, +1:20
10 Guillaume Martin (Fra) Wanty-Groupe Gobert, +1:24
