Matt Teggart's flying performance on the Tour of Britain has continued today, when the Irishman spent stage 5 on the attack in a breakaway. He has now added to his lead in the sprints classification and now looks set to win it, barring incident.
On today's 186.8km stage from West Bridgford to Mansfield, Teggart made the breakaway with Zeb Kyffin (Ribble Weldtite), Alessandro Iacchi (Qhubeka), Joel Nicolau (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and gained five minutes on the main field at one point. While Teggart and Iacchi sparked off each other at times, the Irishman had the Italian's measure and beat him at the intermediate sprints after 86.5km and 138km.
The WiV-SunGod rider took the sprints jersey on stage 1 and then added to his lead the next day; winning all six primes, for a maximum of three points each time, on the opening two stages. Today he and Iacchi watched each other closely and when the cooperation fell out of the breakaway after the second sprint, the Irish and the Italian rider got locked into marking each other's attacks. That saw them become detached from the other two breakaway companions and eventually they went back to the peloton, which was closing in.
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In the finale of the race, after all the breakaway men had been caught, Teggart could be seen on the front of the bunch trying to drag his team's train into position ahead of the sprint from a reduced peloton which settled stage honours; rounding out a fantastic day for him. He now leads the sprints classification on 24 points, with his nearest challenger - team mate Ben Perry - on 8 points.
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The finale of today's stage was marred by a strange incident inside the final 1km when a section of the main field took the wrong carriageway as the crowd control barrier section began. The biggest section of the bunch stayed on course and sprinted it out at the line while a small section ended up on a parallel carriageway, unable to contest the sprint.
The stage was won by Jordi Meeus (Bora-hansgrohe) from Stanisław Aniołkowski (Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB), with Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) getting up for 3rd and a four-second time bonus. While Pidcock remains in 2nd place overall, he is now just three seconds down on yesterday's stage 4 winner, and race leader, Gonzalo Serrano (Movistar).
Irish champion Rory Townsend (WiV-SunGod), who has been suffering with stomach issues, finished in 75th today on the same time as the winner with Teggart in 85th at 1:41.
