Cycling: The Swiss Mathias Brändle (IAM) won the fifth stage of the Tour of Britain after 177 kilometers from Exmouth to Exeter. As a soloist, he relegated Shane Archbold (An Post-ChainReaction) and Marten Wynants (Belkin) to their place.
The Swiss with Archbold, Wynants and Cologne's Andreas Stauff (MTN-Qhubeka) broke away from the field early on and gained a maximum lead of three minutes. The group managed to keep the lead on the wavy profile.
Although the Omega Pharma-QuickStep and Garmin-Sharp teams set the pace in the final, they no longer had a chance of winning the day.
With five kilometers to go, the front runners were still one minute ahead. On the last climb of the day, Brändle broke away from his companions and defended a lead of eight seconds. The field around overall leader Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) crossed the line just behind them. Rick Zabel (BMC) was the best German in sixth place.
Kwiatkowski defended his lead. Second is still Edoardo Zardini (Bardiani-CSF), three seconds behind, followed by Dylan Teuns (BMC).
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