Townsend on podium at Tour of Britain after 170km breakaway | Video

Irish road race champion Rory Townsend was up the road for 170km on stage 4 at Tour of Britain to Burton Dassett (Photo: Bruce Rollinson-SWpix.com)

Rory Townsend (Q36.6 Pro Cycling) has spent 168km up the road on stage 4 at the Tour of Britain and ending the day on the podium, even though his four-man group was caught in the final.

Townsend and three others he was with made their move from the start of the 185km, which featured three laps of a finishing circuit including the climb of Burton Dassett Hills; some 900m at 7.3 per cent, which the finish line at the top.

Though the breakaway pulled out an advantage north of three minutes, the testing finishing circuit was difficult enough to ensure the organised chase at the front of the peloton made rapid progress ino closing the gap.

Townsend was with Joshua Golliker (EF Education-Aevolo), Victor Vercouillie (Team Flanders-Baloise) and Cedric Beullens (Lotto). They were caught with about 13km to go; swept up before the second passage of the final climb.

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France's Romain Grégoire of Groupama-FDJ dominated the final passage of Burton Dassett Hill to win the stage 4 (Photo: Bruce Rollinson-SWpix.com)

That paved the man for a drag race in the bunch to the finish line on the final passage of the climb, with the stage won by Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) from Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro Cycling), with Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain-Victorious) 3rd at two seconds.

After a long day out front, Townsend lost time once he was caught; finishing 90th at 4:53. However, he secured a trip to the podium after being awarded the combativity prize.

Grégoire has taken the race lead, though he has just two seconds over 2nd placed Matthew Brennan (Visma | Lease a Bike), who won Thursday's stage 3, with Alaphilippe 3rd at four seconds.

Townsend, the only Irish rider in the race, was 9th, 5th and 11th on the first three stages, all ending in bunch sprints and won Olav Kooij (Visma | Lease a Bike), Kooij again and Brennan respectively.

Tomorrow's stage 5 finishes atop the cat 1 climb of The Tumble in Wales after 133.6km. Sunday's final stage, some 112km from Newport to Cardiff, includes the climb of Caerphilly Mountain - 1.3km at 9.6 per cent - crested 11.5km from the finish line.

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