Edoardo Zardini (Bardini) took the second big win of his career when he emerged as the strongest in the Tour of Britain queen stage with finished with a hilltop finish on the climb known as The Tumble. Having attacked from the bottom, the Italian seemed to have lost it all when he was passed by Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff-Saxo) but he made an excellent comeback to take both the stage win and the leader’s jersey.

In April, Edoardo Zardini came of age when he attacked from the bottom of the final climb in a hard mountain stage of the Giro del Trentino and managed to hold off the race favourites to take a surprise stage win. Today he made a very similar performance to conquer the Tour of Britain queen stage.

Finishing on the 5km climb known as The Tumble, the stage was the hardest in recent Tour of Britain history and as expected it all came down to a battle between the climbers on the ascent. Jack Bauer (Garmin-Sharp) launched an early attack and Zardini quickly bridged the gap.

Leaving the Kiwi behind, the Italian built an advantage of 15 seconds over the splintering peloton from which Nicolas Roche attacked. The Irishman bridged the gap, dropped Zardini and seemed to be taking the win.

However, Roche started to fade and Zardini managed to rejoin him before launching another stinging attack. Roche had no response and from there he increased his advantage all the way to the line. Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) made a great sprint out of the small chase group to pass Roche just before the line, scoring important bonus seconds and gaining 5 seconds on Bradley Wiggins (Sky) who paced his way up the climb to take fifth.

After two stages for the sprinters, it was time for the GC riders to come into play in the race’s queen stage which brought them over 179.9km from Newton to a hilltop finish on La Tumble. The riders tackled three climbs in the early part of the stage before a flat section led to the bottom of the 6km climb which has an average gradient of 7%.

There were no overnight withdrawals and so 117 riders took the start under a sunny sky. Like yesterday, the race was off to a very fast start as the riders went straight up a tough category 2 climb.

Manuele Boaro (Tinkoff-Saxo) was first at the top as he led KOM leader Mark McNally (An Post), Thomas Stewart (Madison), Sebastian Lander (BMC), Michael Cumings (Rapha) and Yanto Barker (Raleigh) over the line in the KOM sprint. Those six riders managed to get a gap and as the peloton slowed down, they quickly had an advantage of two minutes.

Boaro was again the fastest in the second KOM sprint as he beat McNally, Stewart and Cumings in the battle for the points. In the third sprint, the Italian again proved his great form, relegating McNally, Stewart and Lander to the minor positions.

At that point, the gap was 2.30 and while Julien Vermote (OPQS) set a steady pace, it stayed that way for a while. After the feed zone with 90km to go, however, Vermote accelerated and he quickly brought the gap down to 1.30.

With 81km to go, race leader Mark Renshaw (OPQS) asked Vermote to slow down and while he stopped for a natural break, the advantage grew to 2.30. Vermote went back to work and this time he got some assistance from Bernhard Eisel (Sky).

The pair kept the gap stable for a while before the started to accelerate with 55km to go. Meanwhile, Lander beat Boaro and Stewart in the second intermediate sprint.

The gap came down to 1.30 but the escapees now made a strong reaction, extending it back up to 1.40. With 41km to go, Lander beat Boaro and McNally in the final intermediate sprint and this time Lander and Boaro used the opportunity to press on.

The four chasers rejoined the lead but the cooperation was now gone. Cumings launched a solo attack and after a little while, Boaro and Stewart bridged across.

The trio extended their advantage to 2.30 while Eisel had now stopped his chase work. Vermote was working on his own for a little while but with 30km to go, his teammate Mark Cavendish also started to ride on the front.

Barker and McNally were the first riders to get caught and a little later Lander was also back in the fold. The hard work by Vermote and Cavendish had a clear effect and with 20km to go, the gap was only 30 seconds.

This was the signal for Boaro to attack and the Italian easily dropped his companions. He managed to reopen his advantage to 1.15 but while Cavendish neutralized an attack from a Rapha rider, the fight for position had started and he was now again losing ground.

Garmin hit the front with stagiaire Dylan Grindlestone but Belkin, MTN and Sky were also up there. While Eisel and Tyler Farrar (Garmin) rode on the front, Boaro was brought back 7km from the line.

Raleigh, Garmin, MTN and the national team all had short stints on the front before Tinkoff-Saxo led the peloton onto the climb. Rasmus Guldhammer set the early pace before Rory Sutherland took over.

While Renshaw was dropped, Bauer launched the first attack and he was joined by Christopher Juul (Tinkoff) and Zardini. The Italian went straight to the front and this was too much for Juul who fell back to the peloton where Jerome Pineau set the pace for IAM.

Zardini and Bayer were 15 seconds ahead but while David Lopez started to chase for Sky, Bauer fell back to the peloton. That was the signal for Roche to make his move while Sebastien Reichenbach (IAM) took off in pursuit.

Roche caught Zardini while Reidhenback fell back to a small chase group that was made up of Ion Izagirre, Giovanni Visconti (both Movistar), Kwiatkowski, Leopold König (NetApp) and Dylan Theuns (BMC). Wiggins had been suffering early on but with 1km to go, Lopez paced him back to the chasers.

Roche dropped Zardini but just before the flamme rouge, the Italian rejoined the Irishman. He took a short moment to recover before he launched a fierce attack that Roche couldn’t respond to.

Zardini rode solo for the final kilometres and crossed the line 9 seconds ahead of Kwiatkowski who made a strong final acceleration to pass Roche just before the line. Theuns followed 2 seconds later before Wiggins led the rest of the chase group across the line to take fifth.

With the win, Zardini takes the leader’s jersey and he goes into stage 4 with a 13-second advantage over Kwiatkowski. It another hilly affair with two early category 3 climbs before the riders tackle a category 2 climb which summits just 2km from the finish. From there, the road is slightly uphill all the way to the line.