Oscar Onley climbs to 3rd on The Tumble and moves up on GC

With some sprint stages and a day for the punchers behind them, the fifth day of racing looked set to be one for the GC riders; with a finish atop The Tumble in Wales. Team Picnic PostNL set out with the sole aim of looking after Oscar Onley throughout the stage and positioning him as best as possible to battle it out on the final climb.

A strong break formed but the team helped to control the gap, and over the first passage of the climb the peloton reduced in size but not too dramatically. From there, the remaining breakaway riders were reeled in and the expected showdown was set on the climb. Onley tried to attack and go clear, getting a small gap with two others, but a strong headwind put a dent in their progress and with one kilometre to go an elite group was together. Coming down to an uphill sprint to the line, Onley gave it his all to take a credible third place on the stage and with that move up to fourth place on GC ahead of tomorrow’s final stage.

After the stage Onley expressed: “It was nice to be racing on Welsh roads, they’re really good around here. The race wasn’t as hard as we expected today and it all came back together before the bottom of The Tumble the last time. With quite a strong headwind up the climb it made it difficult to break away. I tried with Sivakov and a Bahrain rider but with the wind it was hard to stay away. It was then just about giving everything I had in the sprint. Without going on the attack before then maybe I could have done slightly better, but I tried.”