Tour of Britain: Vermote wins stage 7

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Julien Vermote (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) won the seventh stage of the Tour of Britain out of a break group. He soloed in to the finish in Brighton, 23 seconds ahead of break companions Ignatas Konovalovas (MTN-Qhubeka) and Dylan van Baarle (Garmin-Sharp).

That was enough to move Van Baarle into the overall lead, as former leader Alex Dowsett (Movistar) was dropped on the penultimate climb and fell to 10th overall. Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) moved up to second, at 19 seconds, with Edoardo Zardini third at 15 seconds.

This year’s longest stage, 226.5km from Camberley to Brighton, got off to an early start. A break group of five soon formed and took off. Kevin Ista (IAM), Van Baarle, Konovalovas, Marcin Bialablocki (Giordana) and Vermote had formed the group of the day, and 50km into the stage, had already ridden out a four-minute gap. And by 100km, it had jumped to nine minutes.

With 74km to go, the gap had dropped to just over eight minutes, and behind them, Bardiani and BMC had moved up to help Movistar in the chase. A large crowd greeted the riders at the first climb of the day, the Beachy Head, which the lead group took with a gap of 6:45.

The wind along the coast did its expected job, breaking up the peloton on the climb. Bialablocki was the first to drop from the lead group, at the 54km mark, but caught up with them again about 12km later.

The gap had dropped to under three minutes as they came to the second climb, the Ditchling Beacon. Vermote jumped as the break started up, and he flew up alone to the summit. The peloton splintered even more down to around 25 riders.

Yellow jersey Dowsett was dropped on the climb, losing 40 seconds at the top to a group, which included the dangerous Brad Wiggins (Sky), Michal Kwiatkowski (OPQS) and Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff-Saxo). He rode hard, bringing the gap down to 30 seconds, but suffered on the final climb, falling back again.

Vermote took two minutes with him as he hit the final ascent, with four km to go. His lead was never in danger, and he cruised in to the finish easily. The two remaining members of the break group came in 23 seconds later, with Konovalovas outsprinting Van Baarle for second.

But the the real action was taking place behind them. A high-powered group of maybe 15 riders sprinted in, with Kwiatkowski going over the line first.

Another similar sized group, led by Dowsett, came flying up as well. He no longer had any chance to retain his lead, losing about 1:13.  

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