Wout wins in Catalunya

Wout Poels pulled off a magnificent solo victory on stage five at the Volta a Catalunya with a late attack.

Wout Poels pulled off a magnificent solo victory on stage five at the Volta a Catalunya with a late attack.

The Dutchman raced aggressively for the second day in succession and was rewarded handsomely with a classy win into Valls, fending off his fellow breakaway members by 11 seconds at the line.

After making multiple attempts to get up the road, Poels finally pushed clear in an 18-strong move, before powering clear with 14 kilometres to go on the Alt de Lilla.

Cresting the climb he held a slender advantage on a chasing group featuring two former team-mates, but just had enough in reserve to get his arms in the air.

Dario Cataldo (Astana) beat home Gaetan Bille (Wanty Groupe Goubert) and Kanstantsin Siutsou (Dimension Data) in the fight for the podium places, while Ben Swift took 10th on the day from the bunch sprint.

After patrolling the front of the peloton late on, Chris Froome finished safely in the pack to remain eighth overall, 46 seconds behind Nairo Quintana (Movistar).

With two days remaining, the race leader saw his advantage trimmed to seven seconds after Alberto Contador (Tinkoff) snagged a bonus second at the intermediate sprint in Ager.

Team Sky began the day with a reduced six-man unit, following the abandonment of Ian Boswell on Thursday and Geraint Thomas not starting the stage, instead choosing to rest up in the days before the Tour of Flanders.

Poels happy with 'cool' win

"That was a cool one," Poels told TeamSky.com from back on the bus.

"We wanted to do something for Swifty today but we also wanted to keep the options open a little bit so we didn't have to ride. It was a really, really hard stage but it worked out well in the end.

"I was a little bit nervous, especially in the last two kilometres they came really close. I think I always look behind me a little bit too much but it was okay in the end.

"It was a bit similar to my win at Tirreno last year, only this time it was a little bit further to the finish! On the downhill was not the best place to be alone, but I had to attack on the climb as I did not want to wait for the sprint. Sometimes I know I can do a good effort, and in this case it was a final 10 kilometre TT. Everything or nothing. And it worked out good!"

The victory was also a special one for Sport Director Brett Lancaster, who had a front-row seat for his first success in the team car.

"It was really incredible," said the Aussie.

"The race had been going well over 100km at full speed and the break just wasn't going. Initially there was a group of 25 and we decided to pull it back for Swifty. Even Chris chipped in and helped pull it back. Then Wout just slipped into the move. I think everyone was quite tired and that stage, and when he got out there he was joking "oh what am I doing here?" Typical Wout - having a bit of a laugh.

"He kept tapping away and we decided if it came to the climb we'd just go for one big attack. We didn't want it to come to a sprint. I was getting pretty excited on the microphone. Towards the end he kept looking back. And I kept telling him 'don't look back!' For me personally, when I got out of the car I was shaking. It was the first experience of my whole life like that. It was really something else. Then we came back to the bus and watched the rest of E3. Obviously the guys went incredible there. The spirit and the ambience on the bus was incredible. A very big day!"