Tour of Britain Stage 7a: Tony Martin wins TT as Steve Cummings defends Yellow Jersey Lead

Steve Cummings defended his hold on the Yellow Jersey, after taking fourth place in this morning’s Individual Time Trial in Bristol.

Meanwhile, three-time World Champion Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) won today’s 15 kilometer race against the clock with a winning time of 18:06, beating BMC Racing’s Rohan Dennis by three-seconds.

Speaking afterwards, the Etixx Quick-Step rider said;

“In this peloton you have the world’s best time trialists, so it really makes it special for me. It’s also my first victory in the Tour of Britain, so it’s definitely a victory to remember.

“The course was really nice but the rain and wet roads made it a little bit dangerous because you have to fight for every second.

“I did a good recon and knew the corners quite well so knew how fast I could go, so for me it was fine. I didn’t really expect to be going so fast as the week has been quite hard for us, we had the jersey until yesterday and had to work a lot, so I didn’t feel fresh.

“But sometimes when you don’t expect a good performance you do even better, so I’m really happy. It’s my first international victory of the year so gives me a lot of morale.”

Giant Alpecin’s Tom Dumoulin rounded out the podium with the third fastest time, 5-seconds behind Dennis.

Cummings put in a solid performance to lose just over 10 seconds and keep himself in control of the overall classification.

Saturday afternoon’s road stage will be over the same course as the time trial.

Tour of Brtian Stage 7a Time Trial Top 20

1 Tony Martin (Ger) Etixx - Quick-Step 0:18:06.94 
2 Rohan Dennis (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:00:02.94 
3 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Giant-Alpecin 0:00:04.17 
4 Stephen Cummings (GBr) Dimension Data 0:00:15.14 
5 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal 0:00:24.12 
6 Gorka Izaguirre (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:24.13 
7 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Movistar Team 0:00:34.83 
8 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky 0:00:35.96 
9 Ryan Mullen (Irl) Cannondale-Drapac 0:00:38.09 
10 Dylan Van Baarle (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac 0:00:39.19 
11 Taylor Phinney (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:00:39.41 
12 Tao Geoghegan Hart (GBr) Great Britain 0:00:43.89 
13 Jochem Hoekstra (Ned) Team Giant-Alpecin 0:00:46.83 
14 Jorge Arcas Pena (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:47.75 
15 Martijn Tusveld (Ned) Team Giant-Alpecin 0:00:48.74 
16 Taylor Eisenhart (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:00:49.31 
17 Edmund Bradbury (GBr) NFTO 0:00:50.61 
18 Ben Swift (GBr) Team Sky 0:00:53.97 
19 Hector Saez (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA 0:00:54.06 
20 Julien Vermote (Bel) Etixx - Quick-Step 0:00:58.16

Tour of Britain General classification after stage 7a, Top 10

1 Stephen Cummings (GBr) Dimension Data 27:22:33 
2 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Giant-Alpecin 0:00:38 
3 Rohan Dennis (Aus) BMC Racing Team   
4 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal 0:01:02 
5 Dylan Van Baarle (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac 0:01:21 
6 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky 0:01:26 
7 Xandro Meurisse (Bel) Wanty - Groupe Gobert 0:01:48 
8 Ben Swift (GBr) Team Sky 0:01:52 
9 Julien Vermote (Bel) Etixx - Quick-Step 0:02:08 
10 Jacopo Mosca (Ita) Trek-Segafredo 0:02:32