Tour of Britain: Elia Viviani sprints to win as Juan Jose Lobato takes lead

Elia Viviani sprinted to his second win of this year’s Aviva Tour of Britain on stage three as Juan Jose Lobato replaced Petr Vakoc in the overall lead.

Viviani (Team Sky) produced a perfectly timed burst to comfortably beat Lobato (Movistar) into second place and Matteo Trentin (Etixx - Quick-Step) into third at Floors Castle in Kelso.

Lobato had started the day second overall but moves into the yellow jersey after previous leader Vakoc (Etixx - Quick-Step) crashed with just over 3km to go and eventually finished 10 minutes down.

Had Vakoc fallen inside the final 3km, he would have been given the same time as the rest of the peloton, but agonisingly, the incident happened a couple of hundred metres outside.

Mark Cavendish (Etixx - Quick-Step) was held up by Vakoc's crash and was unable to regain contact with the peloton, eventually crossing the line 2min 51sec down in 88th place.

Edvald Boasson Hagen (MTN-Qhubeka) is now second overall, 10 seconds adrift of Lobato, while Floris Gerts (BMC Racing) is 12 seconds down in third.

Viviani told teamsky.com: "On paper it looked like a good stage for me, but we didn't know how hard that last climb was going to be, so we controlled the pace all the way up it to make sure I was still in contact.

"The finish suited me, and even after 216km, my legs felt good. I started my sprint with 150m to go and when I went, I knew no one would beat me. I'm really happy with this win."

Like Cavendish, Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) was also absent in the dash for the line after acting as lead-out rider for team-mate Jens Debusschere, who finished fifth.

Stage three only came down to a sprint after the last three riders out of the day's breakaway, Tyler Farrar (MTN-Qhubeka), Marcin Bialoblocki (ONE Pro Cycling) and Matt Cronshaw (Madison Genesis) had been caught with 3km to go.

Viviani's victory was Team Sky's 200th win since entering professional cycling in 2010.

Stage three result

1 Elia Viviani (Ita) Team Sky, 5:08:18

2 Juan Jose Lobato (Esp) Movistar, same time

3 Matteo Trentin (Ita) Etixx - Quick-Step, st

4 Sondre Holst Enger (Nor) IAM Cycling, st

5 Jens Debusschere (Bel) Lotto Soudal, st

6 Owain Doull (GB) WIGGINS, st

7 Alberto Bettiol (Ita) Cannondale-Garmin, st

8 Graham Briggs (GB) JLT Condor, st

9 Alex Peters (GB) Great Britain, st

10 Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky, st

General classification

1 Juan Jose Lobato (Esp) Movistar, 13:37:04

 2 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) MTN-Qhubeka, +10sec

3 Floris Gerts (Ned) BMC Racing, +12

4 Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky, +13

5 Dylan van Baarle (Ned) Cannondale-Garmin, same time

6 Owain Doull (GB) WIGGINS, +14

7 Graham Briggs (GB) JLT Condor, st

8 Rasmus Gulhammer (Den) Cult Energy, st

9 Matteo Trentin (Ita) Etixx - Quick-Step, +18

10 Ruben Fernandez (Esp) Movistar, +22