Tour of Britain: Dylan van Baarle takes race lead as Julien Vermote wins stage seven

The Netherlands’ Dylan van Baarle moved into the overall lead of the Tour of Britain as fellow breakaway rider Julien Vermote claimed a solo victory on stage seven in Brighton.

Van Baarle started the day just 1min 25sec behind race leader Alex Dowsett in the general classification but was bizarrely allowed by the peloton to join the day’s five-man escape group and build up a lead of almost ten minutes.

Although that advantage was cut drastically, he still crossed the finish line in third place on the day, 57 seconds ahead of a chase group containing all of his rivals for overall victory except for Dowsett, who was dropped on two late climbs and fell out of the equation.

With bonus seconds also added, Van Baarle has now opened up a 19-second lead over Michal Kwiatkowski at the top of the overall standings, with Edoardo Zardini 25 seconds back in third and Sir Bradley Wiggins 47 seconds adrift in seventh.

Vermote, meanwhile, attacked on the penultimate climb of the day, with 17km remaining, and hung on to beat Ignatas Konovalovas into second place by 23 seconds.

'Full gas'

Van Baarle said afterwards: “I feel really great now. After the finish I was really tired. I was full gas the whole day. The last 25km I gave everything I had with Konovalovas. We were pushing so hard."

Van Baarle, 22, must now defend his lead on Sunday's race-ending split stage in London, which is made up of an 8.8km time trial and an 88.8km criterium on the banks of the Thames.

“My time trial is not really bad but after this day it will be a little bit harder," Van Baarle added. "I will do my best and then we will see what happens.”

Wiggins believes he is now too far back to snatch overall race victory in the time trial. He said: "[Taking the lead] is a big ask over 8.8km. I think a podium is more realistic. At the end of the day it's about going out there and trying to win the stage.”

Stage seven was the longest of the race, at 225.1km, and ended with the back-to-back category-one ascents of Ditching Beacon and Bear Road and then a 7km downhill dash to the finish.

Misjudgement

With the absence of race radios leaving riders without regular communication with their teams, Dowsett’s Movistar and second-placed Kwiatkowski’s Omega Pharma – Quick-Step allowed the breakaway’s gap to grow out to a maximum of 9min 45sec.

They realised the severity of the situation with 90km to go and several teams worked together to chase, but their cumulative strength proved insufficient and they still trailed by around three minutes by the time the escapees hit the foot of Ditching Beacon.

Vermote (Omega Pharma – Quick-Step) attacked almost instantly and wasn’t seen again, but Van Baarle (Garmin-Sharp) and Konovalovas (MTN-Qhubeka), who himself was only 2min 18sec down overall, knew huge jumps up the general classification were at stake and both worked together to stay away from the chasing pack.

Dowsett was dropped by the peloton a short way up Ditching Beacon and never regained contact, so attention consequently turned to Kwiatkowski’s bid to regain the yellow jersey.

With the help of Wiggins (Team Sky), who drove the pace in the main bunch between the Ditching Beacon summit and bottom of Bear Lane, Kwiatkowski put enough time into Dowsett to eliminate the Briton from contention, but he could not close the gap sufficiently over the final climb to deny Van Baarle a surprise race lead.

Stage seven result

1 Julien Vermote (Bel) Omega Pharma - Quick-Step, 5:12:34
2 Ignatas Konovalovas (Ltu) MTN-Qhubeka, +23sec
3 Dylan Van Baarle (Ned) Garmin-Sharp, same time
4 Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol) Omega Pharma - Quick-Step, +1:20  
5 Lars-Petter Nordhaug (Nor) Belkin, st
6 Kevyn Ista (Bel) IAM Cycling, st
7 Dylan Teuns (Bel) BMC Racing, st
8 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) IAM Cycling, st
9 Francesco Bongiorno (Ita) Bardiani-CSF, st
10 Edoardo Zardini (Ita) Bardiani-CSF, st
Selected other
14 Bradley Wiggins (GB) Team Sky, st

General classification

1 Dylan Van Baarle (Ned) Garmin-Sharp, 30:22:02
2 Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol) Omega Pharma - Quick-Step, +19sec
3 Edoardo Zardini (Ita) Bardiani, +25
4 Nicolas Roche (Ire) Tinkoff-Saxo, +35
5 Dylan Teuns (Bel) BMC, +36
6 Ion Izagire (Spa) Movistar, +45
7 Sir Bradley Wiggins (GB) Team Sky, +47
8 David Lopez (Spa) Team Sky, +49
9 Sebastien Reichenbach (Swi) IAM Cycling, +51
10 Alex Dowsett (GB) Movistar, +59