Thrilling stage finish in Felixstowe as town turns out in force
Thousands of cycle fans, and visitors to the town, witnessed an incredible finish in Felixstowe as the Stage Five finale like thrilled the world.
Felixstowe shone as the Tour of Britain's longest stage started and finished in the resort with large crowds coming out to watch.
ITV4 showed live coverage, including from a helicopter camera, of Felixstowe and approaching villages with people lining the streets in and out of the town and into the Suffolk countryside on Stage Five of this national event involving more than 100 elite riders.
Wout van Aert earned Jumbo-Visma their fifth win in a row with four-time stage winner Olav Kooij handing over victory to his invaluable lead-out rider in Felixstowe.
The whole squad taking a wrong turn on a roundabout in the final 10km threatened to let a team other than Jumbo-Visma win a stage of this year's race, but the yellow and black jerseys were soon back at the front of the peloton, leading into a late flyer for Van Aert.
Ethan Vernon (Great Britain) took second from the bunch ahead of Danny van Poppel (Bora-Hansgrohe) in third. Van Aert's small gap on the line will see him move into the race lead with three days remaining.
"I'm feeling really happy of course," Van Aert said after taking what was only his second road win of the year. "It's always tricky to make a plan like that, and if you can execute it like this it's a lot of satisfaction. Another great day for the team, and I'm really, really proud of this one.
"Yesterday evening we had a look at the final corners, talking about the lead-out, and first I came up with [the plan to attack] as a joke slash idea, and we started to think about it.
"We knew even if someone would respond immediately that the bunch would still be stretched out and Olav would still have a good chance of winning the sprint, so we tried something else.
"That's a nice thing about cycling, enough times it's boring and you can expect what's going to happen, so it's nice to spice things up."
Stage 5 of the Tour of Britain headed to the east of England, starting and finishing in Felixstowe and taking in a 192km loop around Suffolk, making it the longest stage of this year's race.
The first rider to finish with any kind of time gap, Van Aert goes into the race lead - taking the jersey from Kooij - three seconds ahead of Vernon and Max Kanter (Movistar) on the virtual podium.
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