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Boasson Hagen takes his third British stage win in a row, and takes over the race lead
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Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen claimed a third successive stage win to move into the overall lead of the Tour of Britain on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old won a sprint finish ahead of Italian Filippo Pozzato and Britain's Russell Downing to claim his sixth Tour of Britain stage victory in
two seasons. He now leads Dutch rider Kai Reus by nine seconds.
In third place is Australia's Chris Sutton, who believes his hopes of winning the Tour may have gone as a result of Garmin-Slipstream teammate Bradley Wiggins' decision to quit the race.
Wiggins withdrew at the end of the fourth stage in Blackpool to focus on the world time trial championships in Switzerland next week.
That decision has left Sutton and Garmin a man light for the rest of the week and Sutton admits he is up against it.
Sutton finished ninth in Wednesday's 134-km fifth stage around the Staffordshire Moorlands but is now 14 seconds behind the in-form Norwegian.
"I was starting to think about going for the general classification rather than just stages but that is looking less likely now," said Sutton.
"It's still possible but with Bradley dropping out and Boasson Hagen in such good form it makes it really tough.
"I was really disappointed that Bradley dropped out because it makes it so much harder to control a race with one less rider than the other teams.
"He's been like a mentor to me and he really motivates me to push myself and do as well as I can."
But with the two toughest legs of this year's eight-stage course still to come, Sutton, who won the opening stage in York on Saturday, is adamant he won't throw in the towel in his bid for the yellow jersey.
The riders will cycle more than 340km in the next two days and Sutton added: "Everything is going against the team but I'm not giving up - I'm sure that me and my team mates can be there or thereabouts at the end of the week.
"The last two days have been really hard and things haven't gone the way we wanted them to.
"A bit of tiredness is starting to creep in and the stages are getting more and more difficult but we will keep on going and see where it takes us."
