Tour of Britain: Brändle takes solo stage 5 victory

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Matthias Brändle (IAM Cycling) soloed in to take the win in stage 5 of the Tour of Britain in Exeter. He had been in the day’s escape group, as had second and third place finishers Shane Archbold (An Post-Chainreaction) and Maarten Wynants (Belkin).

Race leader, Michal Kwiatkowski of Omega Pharma-QuickStep crossed the line with the peloton 14 seconds after Brändle, easily holding on to his overall lead.

"All victories are nice, but this one today is certainly one of the most important wins of my career," Brändle said after the podium presentations. "My breakaway companions and I worked well together. When the peloton started to bring us back at around 40 kilometers from the finish, we put the turbo on and rode à bloc until the foot of the climb. When I jumped away on the last few percentages, I knew it was make or break. I am really thrilled to have been able to cross the line with my arms raised."

An early breakaway saw Andreas Stauff (MTN), Matthias Brändle (IAM), Maarten Wynants (Belkin) and Shane Archbold (An Post-Chainreaction) get away. They stayed away but never had a lead of more than just over three minutes on the 177kms between Exmouth and Exeter.

Omega Pharma-QuickStep and Garmin-Sharp kept the group on a short line throughout the day, but the field waited a long time to make a serious chase. When the gap was still nearly two minutes with 15km to go, more teams moved in to help. It was still 1:30 with 10km to go.

But that final 10km contained the final climb of the day, the category 2 Stoke. Brad Wiggins (Sky), Tinkoff-Saxo and Omega Pharma-QuickStep were all visible at the head of the field as it neared the climb.

The four leaders took 60 seconds with them as they started up the climb with 5km to go. Dylan Van Baarle (Garmin) launched the first attack out of the field as they started up. Ahead, Brändle had taken off from his escape companions. Van Baarle was caught, and Brändle had only 25 seconds at the top.

The peloton flew down the climb, furiously chasing Brändle, but had left it too long. He soloed in to take the win, with Archbold second and Wynants third. The field came in only 12 seconds down.

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