Britain’s Alex Dowsett was given a taste of his own medicine on a dramatic stage seven of the 2014 Tour of Britain, as Garmin Sharp’s Dylan van Baarle survived from a day-long breakaway to take the yellow jersey in Brighton.
Van Baarle broke away early on with four other riders including stage winner Julien Vermote and repeated Dowsett’s feat of the previous day, staying away over the tortuous back-to-back climbs of Ditchling Beacon and Bear Road to take the overall lead by 19 seconds from former leader Michal Kwiatkowski.
Dowsett was distanced on the penultimate climb and did his best to limit his losses, ending the day in 10th overall, 59 seconds back in the overall standings.
After the race Dowsett tweeted: "Better to have tried and failed than given up hopes of gc on day 3. Thank you for all the support out there, means a lot."
Team Sky’s Sir Bradley Wiggins ended the day in seventh, 47 seconds behind the leader with just Sunday’s London time trial and circuit race to come.
The penultimate day of racing of the 2014 Tour was also the longest, with a gruelling 226.5-kilometre parcours from Camberley in Surrey to Brighton in East Sussex.
On the way were three sprint points at Horsham, Newick and Hailsham while the first categorised climb came at 162.2-kilometres on the iconic Beachy Head.
But it was the final 20-kilometres that got the pundits talking pre-race, with the back-to-back climbs of Ditchling Beacon and Bear Road strategically placed to rip the race apart in its final throes.
Five riders went clear early on, Kevyn Ista (IAM Cycling), Dylan van Baarle (Garmin Sharp), Ignatas Konovalovas (Team MTN Qhubeka), Elite Road Series runner-up Marcin Bialoblocki (Velosure-Giordana RT) and Julien Vermote (Omega Pharma-Quick Step).
With just 50 kilometres of racing under their wheels, the breakaway advantage was up to almost four minutes but with over 200-kilometres still to go it was too early to make any predictions with a testing finale ahead.
Of the leaders, van Baarle was the best placed on general classification, one minute and 25 seconds back on the Alex Dowsett – ironically the same deficit that faced the Essex man on the preceding stage, so the peloton had to be mindful of a repeat of stage six’s extraordinary outcome.
Yet a further 100-kilometres down the road the lead had stretched to over nine minutes, as it had the day before. Van Baarle had taken maximum time bonuses at the Horsham and Newick sprints and went on to make it a hat-trick at Hailsham, underlining the Garmin Sharp man’s intentions and prompting speculation that the peloton was about to be outfoxed for a second day in succession.
But by Hailsham the lead had already began to wane, with only van Baarle, fellow general classification contender Konovalovas and Ista prepared to fully commit, while behind the big teams were more willing than on stage six to combine their power and reel the escapees in.
The lead was down to just over seven minutes as the break reached Beachy Head while behind Britain’s Mark McNally came to the head of the peloton at the summit to put the 2014 Skoda king of the mountains competition beyond doubt.
At 50-kilometres to go the gap was down below six minutes but it was still unclear whether the advantage was being quashed quickly enough. Bialoblocki was unshipped from the breakaway but recovered to re-join his escape companions as the pointy end of the bike race approached.
With 30-kilometres remaining the leading quintet still had over four minutes’ advantage and Dowsett’s Movistar team were setting a stinging tempo at the head of the field.
Onto the 8-percent, 1.5-kilometre Ditchling Beacon and Vermote, who had been a passenger all day, attacked while Bialoblocki was immediately dropped.
Vermote summited the Beacon in the lead but behind Kwiatkowski blew the race apart, distancing Dowsett and taking key contenders Wiggins, Nicholas Roche plus Great Britain’s Tao Geoghegan Hart with him.
Over the Beacon and onto the run-up to Bear Road and the Dowsett group was 45 seconds behind that of Kwiatkowski. Meanwhile Vermote was on Bear Road and heading for victory, with over two minutes on the chasers. But all eyes were on the Dowsett group, the race leader putting everything into limiting his losses, with just teammate Visconti to help him.
A delighted Vermote took the cheers on the Brighton seafront, with Konovalovas winning the sprint for second from van Baarle. However, the Dutchman would have to wait to see if his day long efforts had been in vain.
Tao Geogeghan-Hart headed the chasing group into the final left hander but crashed heavily into the barriers, the Great Britain rider remounting to take the finish, while Kwiatkowski headed the chase group home to take valuable time bonuses.
But van Baarle had done enough to leap to the top of the general classification, with a 19 second advantage over Kwiatkowski.
The clock ticked by and with it Dowsett’s hard fought yellow jersey slipped away, the Movistar man finishing the day in tenth place overall, 59 seconds behind van Barle, while Bradley Wiggins remained in seventh overall, 47 seconds adrift.
Geoghegan-Hart moved up to a superb 15th place, one minute and 25 seconds down, moving ahead of Britain's Steve Lampier in 18th, the last of four British riders in the top twenty.
After the race Geoghegan-Hart tweeted: "Big thankyou everyone for checking I'm ok, would appear I got lucky there. No time lost and can't wait to race in my home town tomorrow."
The final day of the 2014 Tour of Britain comprises two stages in London, stage 8a, an 8.8-kilometre time trial followed by stage 8b, an 88.8-kilometre circuit race. Follow live updates from every stage of the Tour of Britain on the British Cycling website.
Results
Stage seven
General classification after stage seven
