Tuesday 6 September 2016 22:05, UK
Team Sky’s Ian Stannard escaped to an impressive solo victory on stage three of the Tour of Britain as Belgium’s Julien Vermote retained the overall lead.
Stannard formed part of the day's four-man breakaway but moved into a lone lead by attacking 41km from the finish at Tatton Park in Cheshire and went on to win by 1min 46sec from fellow escapees Graham Briggs (JLT Condor) in second and Kristian House (ONE Pro Cycling) in third.
The peloton opted against attempting to chase Stannard down and eventually crossed the line 5min 43sec in arrears, with all of the overall contenders present.
Stannard started the stage 13min 13sec down and was not a threat in the general classification, so Vermote (Etixx - Quick-Step) remains six seconds ahead of second-placed Steve Cummings (Dimension Data) and 1min 4sec ahead of third-placed Dan Martin (Etixx - Quick-Step) overall.
Stannard said: "It was a big day, and home roads as well, so I was pretty motivated for the stage and keen to get away. It's always nice to win from a breakaway, and solo as well, so I really enjoyed it today.
"I knew I wanted to go over the top of the Cat [and Fiddle climb] with about five minutes. I think we had a bit of a chance on the run-in then, and then I heard it went out, but that's all I knew, so I was pretty happy."
Stage three ended with a 10km climb of the Cat and Fiddle and then 46km of mostly downhill and flat to the finish.
On paper it looked set to end in a bunch sprint, but with Mark Cavendish's Dimension Data defending Cummings' position, Elia Viviani's Team Sky team-mate Stannard in the breakaway and Andre Greipel having already won a stage, none of the key sprint teams were willing to chase and the escapees were consequently left to fight for victory between themselves.
They worked together well up the Cat and Fiddle to maintain a healthy lead over the bunch, but House and Briggs had no response when Stannard made his stage-winning acceleration and they were left instead to sprint for second place.
The Tour of Britain continues on Wednesday with a 218km fourth stage from Denbigh to Builth Wells. Find out more about the route in our race guide and follow the action with our live blog from 1pm.
Stage three result
1 Ian Stannard (GB) Team Sky
2 Graham Briggs (GB) JLT-Condor, +1:46
3 Kristian House (GB) ONE Pro Cycling, same time
4 Nicola Ruffoni (Ita) Bardiani-CSF, +5:43
5 Danny van Poppel (Ned) Team Sky, st
6 Ramon Sinkeldam (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, st
7 Chris Latham (GB) WIGGINS, st
8 Rick Zabel (Ger) BMC Racing, st
9 Dylan van Baarle (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac, st
10 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Orica-BikeExchange, st
General classification
1 Julien Vermote (Bel) Etixx - Quick-Step, 13:53:15
2 Steve Cummings (GB) Dimension Data, +6sec
3 Dan Martin (Irl) Etixx - Quick-Step, +1:04
4 Ben Swift (GB) Team Sky, +1:08
5 Xandro Meurisse (Bel) Wanty-Groupe Gobert, same time
6 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto-Soudal, st
7 Dylan van Baarle (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac, 1:12
8 Guillaume Martin (Fra) Wanty-Groupe Gobert, st
9 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, st
10 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky, +1:16
