Tour of Britain 2026 – Stage 5 [FULL STAGE]

September 6, 2026

22nd Lloyds Tour of Britain Men 2026 🇬🇧 (2.Pro) ME – Stage 5 – Earlston – Earlston : 156,1 km

Tour of Britain is a UCI stage race that runs across mixed British terrain, combining flat finishes, rolling countryside, steep punchy climbs, and occasional technical city circuits into a varied and often weather-sensitive test. The course can shift quickly from open, wind-exposed roads to narrow rural lanes or short uphill finales, so positioning and adaptation are central throughout the week. Riders must handle crosswinds, changing conditions, and repeated accelerations, while teams work to protect leaders, control breakaways, and manage the race across different stage types. Typical stage profiles range from sprint opportunities on flatter days to selective uphill finishes, lumpy transition stages, and decisive mountain-style efforts in the harder editions. The race dynamics are shaped by team depth, recovery over multiple days, and the ability to respond to late attacks or sudden splits. Finishes can come as bunch sprints, reduced-group contests, solo wins, or time-based results depending on the stage. It is a race defined by variety, tactical control, and resilience across changing terrain.

Nils Politt won the final stage of the Tour of Britain Men on Sunday, after the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team dominated the day, riding Tim Wellens to overall victory.

Politt was part of a group of eight riders which formed when the race exploded in the Lammermuir Hills of the Scottish borders. On the windswept moorland between the day’s three classified climbs, all of which came within 20km of each other, first Netcompany Ineos then UAE put the race in the gutter, splitting the bunch.

With five UAE riders in that group, they controlled, and with their lead secure on two laps around the start and finish town of Earlston, they began playing the game on the final circuit. Politt escaped alone with 8km of the day to go and a series of counterattacks were unable to close him down.

Having survived one of those counterattacks, Florian Vermeersch took second place, six seconds behind him team mate, while Filippo Ganna (Netcompany Ineos) won the sprint for third.

Wellens took eighth place on the stage, finishing well ahead of his nearest rival on GC, to secure the overall win.

For Wellens the win was another of a long list of successes which includes 42 other victories and the second of his year, after he won the Clásica Jaén in February.

“It was a very successful week,” Wellens said. “We came here for the GC, and then today we also have this stage victory, so everything being perfect.

“To be honest, we just wanted to defend the leader jersey, we didn’t want to attack, we didn’t want to make a hard race. But then suddenly in the crosswinds Ineos started to ride very hard, we just followed. There was a gap, and then we just rode tempo with Mikkel [Bjerg].

“But the crosswinds was so hard that when Mikkel was riding the tempo, the group split again, and we were with the whole team in front, and then we continued full to the finish.”

Wellens confirmed he will now head to Canada for the GPs Québec and Montréal, before returning to Europe to finish his season.

Crosswinds and Scottish hills
The final stage of this year’s race saw the peloton head further north, to the Scottish borders for a punchy stage starting and finishing in Earlston. After three climbs through the Lammermuir Hills in the middle of the 156.1km stage, the race returned to the start for two closing laps of 19.4km, both of which rolled but didn’t serve up any meaningful climbing.

After putting time into his rivals on stage 4, Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) started the day in the overall lead, 21 seconds ahead of Lewis Askey (NSN).

Once again there was an aggressive start, though this time the breakaway was quickly allowed up the road. Within 10km of the flag being dropped Ben Wiggins (Team GB), Michal Sichuan (United Shipping), Jonah Killy (Tarteletto-Isorex) and Marcus Sander Hansen ( BHS-PL Baton Bornholm) led by more than two minutes.

With that lead established, Wellens’ teammates came to the front to monitor the gap, with sprinters’ teams Soudal-QuickStep and Decathlon-CMA CGM also lending a hand to keep the deficit on or around the 2:30 mark.

The break worked well to stay together onto the first of the day’s climbs, Redstone Rig, but the wind was howling across the exposed moors over the top, and Netcompany Ineos upped the pace. Not only did this cause the peloton to split, but the gap came down by a minute.

With the exception of Matteo Trentin (Tudor Pro Cycling), the chasing group contained all top five on GC, leading to a concerted chase behind and a decent sized peloton formed. On Duddy Bank, the day’s next climb, UAE upped the pace, the peloton splitting once more, and with the breakaway by now only 45 seconds up the road, the race well and truly exploded.

The breakaway was eventually caught on the base of the third climb, Hardens Hill, a group of 11 forming. In that group, race leader Wellens had four teammates, Benoît Cosnefroy, Nils Politt, Florian Vermeersch and Mikel Bjerg, who were joined by the Netcompay pair of Filippo Ganna and Connor Swift.

Swift soon sat up and was dropped with Killy, slipping back to a group containing former race leader Askey, Daan Hoole and Olav Kooij (Both Decathlon-CMA CGM) and Jasper Stuyven (Soudal-QuickStep), all of whom were just over 30 seconds back, with just under 70km of the race remaining.

While that group expanded after the descent, at the front the UAE riders were assisted by Ganna, extending their lead to one minute, while Wiggins and Sander Hansen from the original break sat on. By the time the leading group reached the finish line for the first of two passes before the finish, their lead had grown to 1:20 on the chasing group of 16.

This lead remained unchanged the next time around, and the race remained in the balance, especially when they lost a handful of seconds on the early part of the final lap. However, an attack from Politt with 9km left saw the leading group break up, with Wiggins, Cosnefroy, Vermeersch and Sander Hansen chasing, though the German was never going to be caught by his own teammates.

Behind them, the chasing group began to close the gap, but Wellens’ overall victory was already assured.

Results :

Final General Classification :