{"id":882630,"date":"2026-09-06T23:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T23:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/882630\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T23:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T23:46:12","slug":"tim-wellens-pulls-away-on-last-stage-to-win-tour-of-britain-tour-of-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/882630\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Wellens pulls away on last stage to win Tour of Britain | Tour of Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tim Wellens, teammate to Tadej Pogacar at the UAE Emirates XRG team, took overall victory in the men\u2019s Tour of Britain<\/a>, after the Belgian rider had decisively snatched the overall race lead on the fourth stage on Saturday, through the hills of North Yorkshire.<\/p>\n

Wellens had started the final stage in Earlston 21 seconds ahead of Lewis Askey but extended that advantage to 42sec by the finish. The British rider finished second overall after riding impressively through the earlier stages, while Ben Wiggins, the 21-year-old son of Sir Bradley Wiggins, placed 10th overall.<\/p>\n

The Belgian rider\u2019s German teammate, Nils Politt, took a rare win in the final stage on Sunday, as Pogacar\u2019s team celebrated another well-executed overall victory after a select group, which included five of their riders, broke clear of the peloton in the Lammermuir hills.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very successful week,\u201d Wellens said. \u201cWe came here for the GC and today we also have this stage victory, so everything\u2019s been perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 165-kilometre stage on Saturday from Helmsley to Leyburn was won by Cees Bol of the Netherlands, but the Tour de France stage winner Wellens did enough on the short\u00a0sharp climbs of the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, to distance the overnight leader Askey and take what proved to be an unassailable lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we just wanted to defend the leader\u2019s jersey,\u201d Wellens said of the final stage through the Scottish\u00a0Borders. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to attack, we didn\u2019t want to make a hard race, we just wanted to ride defensively. But then suddenly, in the crosswinds Netcompany Ineos started to ride very hard, so we just followed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nils Politt shows his delight at winning the final stage. Photograph: Owen Humphreys\/PA<\/p>\n

The British team, whose hopes were frustrated once again by inopportune punctures earlier in the race, took the initiative on the windswept moors, in an attempt to crack UAE Emirates XRG\u2019s hold on the overall standings, but race leader Wellens was well protected and never really looked at risk.<\/p>\n

Politt\u2019s stage-winning move from a leading group that included Wiggins, came with less than 10km remaining. A race that began with a tribute from the peloton to Fin Tarling, who died last month<\/a> in the Volta a Portugal, ended with another poignant moment as Politt pointed to the sky when he crossed the finish line in memory of his grandfather.<\/p>\n

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The repercussions of Tarling\u2019s death in August continue to be felt across the sport and recent further lapses in race security, including at both the women\u2019s and men\u2019s Tour of Britain, have only intensified the debate.<\/p>\n

In response the sport\u2019s governing body, the UCI, has now stressed the \u201curgent need to put in place, as quickly as possible, a dedicated safety system allowing the real-time location of riders and vehicles to be tracked at all professional road cycling events, starting with those in the UCI WorldTour and UCI Women\u2019s WorldTour\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Wellens, teammate to Tadej Pogacar at the UAE Emirates XRG team, took overall victory in the men\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-882630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}