Tour of Britain: Bauer wins stage 5

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Jack Bauer (Cannondale-Drapac) won a tactical four-way sprint to secure the stage 5 win at the Tour of Britain. His breakaway companions were left with the remaining podium places: Amael Moinard (BMC) in second and Erick Rowsell (Madison-Genesis) in third, while Javier Moreno (Movistar) was swept up by the bunch sprint behind. Caleb Ewan (Orica-BikeExchange) took the field sprint for fourth.

The initial five-man break - Johnny McEvoy (NFTO), Rowsell, Bauer, Moinard and Moreno built a lead of 5:21 ahead of the peloton, which was led by three sprinters' teams: Lotto Soudal, LottoNL and Dimension Data, that cut the gap to one minute with 10km to go.

The riders negotiated a climb with 6km to the finish line, and as expected the breakaway began attacking one another. Moinard cleared the group as Bauer, Moreno and Roswell set forth a strong chase behind, forcing McEvoy to lose contact.

The four men regrouped and played a game of cat-and-mouse with under 3km to go, but the gap continued to drop to 30 seconds by the field led by Ian Stannard (Team Sky) followed by Etixx-QuickStep’s and LottoNL-Jumbo’s lead-out teams.

Moinard made one more strong but unsuccessful attack in the final two kilometres and the four linked up again under the flamme rouge.

A tactical finale saw Moreno start the sprint but it was Bauer who took the stage glory just ahead of the bunch sprint.

Julien Vermote (Etixx - QuickStep) continues to lead the overall classification by six seconds ahead of Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data) and 1:03 ahead of Ben Swift (Team Sky).

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How it happened

The peloton set off under cloudy skies in Aberdare for what was to be a hilly day in the saddle. There were three classified climbs to contend with but a whole lot of unclassified ascending in between. The flat finish in Bath would indicate a potential bunch sprint but the Tour of Britain is always poised to upset the formbook.

There was one non-start with Ramon Sinkeldam (Giant-Alpecin) calling it quits but the rest of the pack set off at a blistering pace, aided by a tailwind, and attacks began as soon as the flag dropped. Several sizeable groups had a go off the front before four men finally made it clear after almost 30 kilometres of racing.

Jack Bauer (Cannondale-Drapac), Amael Moinard (BMC), Erick Rowsell (Madison-Genesis) and Jonny McEvoy (NFTO) slipped up the road with Javier Moreno (Movistar) joining them after a lone chase. The breakaway all committed to their mission and by the 50 kilometre mark, the leaders’ advantage was nudging up towards the three minute mark and it would break five minutes before the peloton began to track them down.

The latter half of the stage saw the wind change direction, leaving the breakaway with a challenging headwind to make their chances of staying away a little harder than they would have liked. The bunch, with a sprint in the offering, had them in their sights and began taking big chunks out of their lead.

Dimension Data were the main presence on the front as they looked to set up Mark Cavendish for his first win of the race while LottoNL-Jumbo were also busy at the head of the peloton for Dylan Groenewegen.

Andre Greipel’s Lotto-Soudal and Elia Viviani’s Team Sky also pitched in and with 10 kilometres remaining, they had dragged the gap back to under a minute. With the peloton on their backs the break that had worked so well together began to fracture and Moinard decided to try and solo to the line. The BMC rider jumped off the front twice to no avail, the rest of the break bringing him back each time.

As the leaders entered Victoria park, the gap back to the peloton was only metres and it looked like it just might be a bunch sprint after all. However, in a reverse of the 2014 Tour de France where he was caught on the line, Bauer held off the pack to take his first victory in two years, letting out a huge roar as he crossed the line in Bath.

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