After complete domination by Jumbo-Visma in the first five stages of the 2023 Tour of Britain, their winning streak finally came to an end as Danny van Poppel (Bora-Hansgrohe) out-sprinted Ethan Vernon (Great Britain) to win stage 6 in Harlow.
Tord Gudmestad (Uno-X) was third just ahead of Kooij.
Attacks came from kilometre 0 on the 146.2km stage from Southend-on-Sea to Harlow again from the TBT-Unibet team. Abarm Stockman clipped off the front but waited for teammate Joren Bloem and Kamil Malecki (Q36.5) to join before setting off in earnest.
The trio gained a maximum of 2:30 on the peloton before surges from Uno-X and Team Flanders-Baloise slashed their lead to just seconds.
Alex Coleman (Flanders-Baloise) and Uno-X’s Martin Urianistad managed to bridge across the 10-second gap before more attacks came from behind. Stockman won the intermediate sprint before Jumbo-Visma shut it all down.
The situation sparked a second attempt at establishing a breakaway and, after a time, solo rider William Tidball (Saint Piran) got a gap with 89km to go.
A few kilometres later, Stockman and teammate Hartthijs De Vries came across to Tidball along with a Saint Piran teammate Jack Rootkin-Gray and Danny van der Tuuk (Kern Pharma).
Jumbo-Visma let this one get just over a minute’s lead but with 45km to go, Van der Tuuk then Tidball were beset by mechanicals, leaving three to hold off the chase. Then Rootkin-Gray threw in the towel and went back to the peloton, leaving the two TBT-Unibet riders to get the maximum TV time.
The pair were back in the peloton with 14.2km to go and, with the peloton bunched up waiting to gear up for the sprint, a touch of wheels in the peloton caused Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) to crash – more bad luck for the Colombian who was last seen clutching his collarbone.
An attack from Dimitri Peyskens (Bingoal WB) inside 5km to go looked to surprise the Jumbo-Visma train as the Belgian gained 15 seconds.
However, Ineos came forward and closed the lone escapee down with 3km remaining setting up a bunch sprint. A huge crash split the peloton just before the flamme rouge disrupting the run-in. Kooij hit out first in the uphill sprint but faded and first Vernon and then Van Poppel came past to win the stage.
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