Wellens seals Tour of Britain as Politt wins final stage in UAE show

Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) won the final stage of the Tour of Britain in Earlston, going solo with 7.3km to go and holding on by six seconds from teammate Florian Vermeersch and Filippo Ganna (Netcompany-Ineos).

Benoît Cosnefroy made it three UAE riders in the top four, finishing fourth alongside Marcus Sander Hansen (BHS-PL Beton Bornholm) at 18 seconds.

Tim Wellens took the overall for UAE. He had started the day with a 21-second advantage over Lewis Askey (NSN Cycling Team), who lost contact when the front group split on the closing circuits.

It is Politt's tenth professional win and his first since the German time trial title in June.

Ben Wiggins (Great Britain), Michal Schuran (Team United Shipping), Jonah Killy (Tarteletto-Isorex) and Sander Hansen formed the early break on a fast opening hour that averaged 47.9km/h.

Schuran took maximum points on the Redstone Rig and Duddy Bank climbs to secure the mountains classification, moving to 37 points.

The favourites came across with 74km remaining, and the race split repeatedly from there. Ganna won both intermediate sprints, at Gordon and on the first passage of the finish line, taking six bonus seconds in the process.

Olav Kooij, Askey, Jasper Stuyven and Daan Hoole were all distanced in a group that trailed by 53 seconds with 15km left, ending Askey's hold on the jersey.

Kim Heiduk (Netcompany-Ineos) crashed and abandoned with 11 kilometres to go, having also gone down at 72.

Politt attacked from the leading group with just under 9km remaining and was briefly joined by Wiggins before going clear alone. Cosnefroy attacked behind at 5.6km to go and was later caught by Vermeersch and Sander Hansen, but nobody got close enough to bring back Politt.