Dylan Groenewegen won his third stage in five days at the Tour of Britain as Matteo Trentin moved into the overall lead on Wednesday.
Groenewegen, who also won the first and third stages, finished ahead of Britain’s Matt Walls and Trentin after a sprint finish through Birkenhead Park in the Wirral.
Trentin’s four-second time bonus for finishing third was enough to put the Mitchelton-Scott rider back into the leader’s green jersey, three seconds ahead of Mathieu van der Poel with Jasper De Buyst in third, 10 seconds back.
Thursday’s sixth stage could decide the outcome of the race with a 14.4 kilometre time trial around Pershore offering plenty of scope for changes in the general classification.
Tour of Britain 2019 – stage 5 results (Birkenhead – Birkenhead):
| 1 | Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) | 3:57:31 |
| 2 | Matthew Walls (Great Britain) | ,, |
| 3 | Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-Scott) | ,, |
| 4 | Cees Bol (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 5 | Davide Cimolai (Israel Cycling Academy) | ,, |
| 6 | Jasper De Buyst (Lotto Soudal) | ,, |
| 7 | Ben Swift (Team Ineos) | ,, |
| 8 | Tom Van Asbroeck (Israel Cycling Academy) | ,, |
| 9 | Edoardo Affini (Mitchelton-Scott) | ,, |
| 10 | Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) | ,, |
Tour of Britain 2019 – general classification after stage 5:
| 1 | Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-Scott) | 21:33:55 |
| 2 | Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) | +03” |
| 3 | Jasper De Buyst (Lotto Soudal) | +10” |
| 4 | Simon Clarke (EF Education First) | +17” |
| 5 | Mike Teunissen (Jumbo-Visma) | +18” |
| 6 | Ben Swift (Team Ineos) | +22” |
| 7 | Andrey Amador (Movistar) | ,, |
| 8 | Amund Grøndahl Jansen (Jumbo – Visma) | ,, |
| 9 | Nils Politt (Katusha-Alpecin) | ,, |
| 10 | Pavel Sivakov (Team Ineos) | ,, |
