Rasmus Tiller secures Tour of Britain stage win

Rasmus Tiller claimed victory in stage seven of the Tour of Britain after holding off competition from Welsh rider Stephen Williams.

A reduced group sprint saw Tiller (Uno-X Pro Cycling) edge ahead of Danny van Poppel (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Williams (Israel–Premier Tech) in Gloucester to win with a time of 3 minutes 50.33 seconds.

Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) remains the overall leader going into Sunday's final stage from Margam County Park to Caerphilly with a three-second advantage over van Poppel and Tiller.

Saturday’s 106.2-mile stage started around the Winchcombe Hill area before a lengthy ride through the valley.

By the time of the final sprint, a shattered group had merged together but Van Aert attempted to catch the leading pack.

The general classification leader pulled away with three kilometres to go but was caught with around 600m to go.

Belgian Van Aert eventually placed 12th with Tiller pipping Van Poppel and Williams on the line amongst a group of 12 sprinters.

Tiller said via cyclingnews.com: "I’m really happy to get the win. Wout went away on the steep climb and I didn’t have the power to follow and needed to pace a little bit, and we managed to come back.

"In the sprint, it was a lot of tactics in the last 10km and Wout was alone out front.

"We knew he was really strong, so we knew we had to pull to bring him back and to do a good lead-out so I’m happy that I managed to win."

Ireland's Ryan Mullen finished 53rd, with his compatriot and Bora-Hansgrohe team-mate Sam Bennett 84th. Rory Townsend (Bolton Equities Black Spoke) finished 86th.

Mullen is now 59th overall, with Townsend 73rd and Bennett 75th in the general classification.