Steve Cummings showed his racing acumen once again as he moved into the lead at the Tour of Britain after an eighth-placed finish on Stage Six.
Wout Poels won the stage at Haytor while Cummings finished in a group of riders 21 seconds back, and the Team Dimension Data now rider leads by 49 seconds from Dutchman Tom Dumoulin.
Poels made a break with 1.5km to go and the field could do little to stop him claiming his third stage win of the tour in extreme weather conditions.
Overnight leader Julien Vermote was in contention early on but he struggled up the final climb and faded to 24 leaving him 11th overall, a long way behind Cummings.
“The team have done an excellent job all week in taking care of me every day and sacrificed chances for Mark [Cavendish] in the sprints to protect me,” said Cummings, who represented Team GB in the road race in Rio.
“I was feeling a little bit of pressure coming into today and I just thought all I could do was do my best and I gave it my all at the end and I'm delighted to take yellow.
“I’ve been second twice before in this race, once by four seconds and once by eight seconds I think, so this race is normally won by seconds not minutes.
“You still have to claw back those seconds and it's not done until it's done. The time trial I'll just give it full gas and hopefully it'll be enough to hold off the superstar time trialists Dumoulin and (Rohan) Dennis.”