Sunday 14 September 2014 20:12, UK
Marcel Kittel out-sprinted Mark Cavendish to win stage 8b of the Tour of Britain as Dylan van Baarle sealed overall victory and Sir Bradley Wiggins consolidated third place.
Kittel claimed his second win of this year’s race by beating his arch rival by less than the width of a wheel in a closely contested finish on Whitehall in central London.
Van Baarle crossed the line in the peloton to seal a ten-second victory over runner-up Michal Kwiatkowski, with Wiggins ending the race 12 seconds further back in third.
Van Baarle said: "I didn't really win the race today, I won it in Brighton yesterday. It was tough to defend my jersey in a time trial against Kwiatkowski, but I did it and I'm very happy. I will remember this day for my whole life.
"I like these kind of stage races very much, but at the start of the week, when I saw the list of riders, guys like Wiggins and Kwiatkowski, I knew it was going to be very hard. I was hoping for perhaps top ten."
The final stage took place over ten laps of the same flat 8.8km circuit used for Sunday morning’s stage 8a time trial, which was won by Wiggins.
A five-man breakaway finally formed after several failed attempts, but with a sprint finish all but guaranteed, their gap was not allowed to grow beyond 40 seconds and they had all been swallowed up by 5.5km to go.
Cavendish’s Omega Pharma – Quick-Step team subsequently led the peloton into the last 1.5km, but then Kittel’s Giant-Shimano train moved alongside them to set up a straight shootout between the best two sprinters in the world.
After Mark Renshaw had led the pair around the final corner, Cavendish emerged from Kittel’s slipstream with about 120m remaining and moved into a narrow lead, but the German’s brute power enabled him to edge back ahead inside the last 30m and clinch a narrow win.
Van Baarle, 22, was safely ushered over the finish line by his Garmin-Sharo team-mates as he completed the biggest win of his career.
Stage 8b result
1 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Giant-Shimano, 1:50:33
2 Mark Cavendish (GB) Omega Pharma – Quick-Step, same time
3 Nicola Ruffoni (Ita) Bardiani-CSF, st
4 Enrique Sanz (Spa) Movistar, st
5 Rick Zabel (Ger) BMC, st
6 Ian Wilkinson (GB) Raleigh, st
7 Dan McLay (GB) Great Britain, st
8 Nikolay Trusov (Rus) Tinkoff-Saxo, st
9 Adam Blythe (GB) NFTO, st
10 Shane Archbold (NZ) An Post-Chain Reaction, st
Final general classification
1 Dylan van Baarle (Ned) Garmin-Sharp, 32:22:50
2 Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol) Omega Pharma - Quick-Step, +10sec
3 Bradley Wiggins (GB) Team Sky, +22
4 Edoardo Zardini (Ita) Bardiani - CSF, +37
5 Nicolas Roche (Ire) Tinkoff-Saxo, +42
6 Ion Izagirre (Spa) Movistar, +46
7 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) IAM Cycling, +50
8 Alex Dowsett (GB) Movistar, +54
9 Jan Barta (Cze) NetApp-Endura, +1:09
10 Dylan Teuns (Bel) BMC Racing, +1:10
