Tour of Britain: Greipel wins stage 7 in Ipswich

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André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) edged out Elia Viviani (Sky) in a thrilling sprint finish on stage 7 of the Tour of Britain in Ipswich, while Edvald Boasson Hagen (MTN-Qhubeka) retained his overall lead with one day of racing to come.

For Greipel, the victory was his 16th of the season, and his first success of this Tour of Britain following a brace of near misses earlier in the week. The German hit the front early in the finishing sprint, but he had to hold off a determined fight back from the in-form Viviani, just shading the decision in a photo finish.

"It was a close victory, but the photo finish was clear I think. We took control of the race from the beginning, no other team wanted to help us. When the gap was nine minutes, one rider of IAM also started to pull. Frederik Frison and Sean De Bie kept the peace high so nobody could attack. Pim, Sibi, Jens and I did the preparation and the sprint. I think we deserved the victory, Sky won already three stages", said Greipel

IAM Cycling’s Sondre Holst Enger took third on the stage ahead of Mark Renshaw, who was performing sprint duties for Etixx-QuickStep in the absence of both Fernando Gaviria and Mark Renshaw.

Boasson Hagen, meanwhile, had to settle for fifth, and while he was never in contention for the stage win he so craves at this race, he inched ever closer to final overall victory. With just Sunday’s criterium in London to come, the Norwegian is 13 seconds clear of Wouter Poels (Sky), with Rasmus Guldhammer (Cult Energy) a further 30 seconds back in third.

The stage was animated by an escape featuring Alex Dowsett (Movistar), Graham Briggs (JLT Condor) and Gabriel Cullaigh (Great Britain).The three Britons were initially joined in the move by LottoNL-Jumbo’s Bram Tankink, though he later dropped back.

Powered by Dowsett’s generous efforts early on, the trio established a maximum lead of seven minutes, but the combined work of Lotto Soudal and Madison-Genesis steadily managed to peg them back.

Dowsett was the first of the trio to yield and Brigg and Cullaigh were swallowed up soon afterwards. Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-QuickStep) enjoyed a brief cameo off the front over the top of the final climb, though perhaps more in preparation for the Richmond Worlds than in expectation of a stage win in Ipswich.

Once the Czech was caught, Lotto Soudal and Sky took over the reins at the head of the peloton as they strung things out to set up the inevitable bunch sprint, and their star men were duly to the fore in the finishing straight.

Full Results

Sprint 1, Fornham St. Martin

Sprint 2, Needham Market

Sprint 3, Wattisham Airfield

Finish

KOM 1, Hevingham

KOM 2, Barking Tye

KOM 3, Branthan Hill

Teams Classification

General Classification after stage 7

Sprint Classification

Mountains Classification

Teams Classification