Tony Martin and Rohan Dennis share the spoils on day 7 at Tour of Britain
Rohan Dennis (BMC) took a surprise win in the afternoon stage on the penultimate day of the Tour of Britain. With a strong attack on a small climb with 3km to go, he opened a gap over the peloton and then made use of his TT skills to hold off the peloton by six seconds.
Maximilano Richeze (Etixx-QuickStep) beat Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) in the sprint for seconds while Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data) retained the lead.
After the morning time trial won by Tony Martin (Etixx – Quick-Step), the riders were back on their bikes in the afternoon for stage 7b which was held over six laps of the 15km time trial circuit as a 90km criterium in Bristol. The circuit was very technical and mainly flat. However, the small climb with 2km to go was a launch pad for a late attack before the riders got to the final two flat kilometres. It was a tehnical finale with a constantly bending road in the final kilometre.
Dennis countered attacks from Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) and Tony Gallopin (Lotto Soudal) and managed to build a 10-second advantage on the climb. He went into time trial mode and even though Etixx-QuickStep did their best to bring it back, he held the peloton off by six seconds to take the win and pass Dumoulin in the overall standings where he now sits second.
Tour of Britain 2016 – stage 7b results (Bristol – Bristol):
| 1 | Rohan Dennis (BMC) |
01:58:42 |
| 2 | Maximiliano Richeze (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
+06” |
| 3 | Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNl-Jumbo) |
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| 4 | Danny Van Poppel (Sky) |
,, |
| 5 | Carlos Barbero (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) |
,, |
| 6 | Xandro Meurisse (Wanty – Groupe Gobert) |
,, |
| 7 | Luka Mezgec (Orica-BikeExchange) |
,, |
| 8 | Tony Gallopin (Lotto Soudal) |
,, |
| 9 | Marco Marcato (Wanty – Groupe Gobert) |
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| 10 | Dylan Van Baarle (Cannondale-Drapac) |
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General classification after stage 7b:
| 1 | Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data) | 29:21:21 |
| 2 | Rohan Dennis (BMC) |
+26” |
| 3 | Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) |
+38” |
| 4 | Tony Gallopin (Lotto Soudal) |
+1’02” |
| 5 | Dylan Van Baarle (Cannondale-Drapac) |
+1’21” |
| 6 | Nicolas Roche (Sky) |
+1’26” |
| 7 | Xandro Meurisse (Wanty – Groupe Gobert) |
+01’48” |
| 8 | Ben Swift (Sky) |
+01’52” |
| 9 | Julien Vermote (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
+02’12” |
| 10 | Jacopo Mosca (Trek-Segafredo) |
+02’32” |
