page_title: 2012 Tour of Britain
section_title: Stage 5
hierarchical_section_title: 2012 Tour of Britain / Stages / Stage 5
caption_attribution_description: Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish lead-off the field through the corridor of fans at the start of today's stage of the Tour of Britain cycle race at Trentham Gardens, Stoke-on-Trent
context_page_description: The 2012 Tour of Britain was the ninth running of the current Tour of Britain and the 73rd British tour in total. The race consisted of eight stages, starting on 9 September in Ipswich, and finishing on 16 September in Guildford. The race was part of the 2012 UCI Europe Tour, and was categorised by the UCI as a 2.1 category race.
  The race was originally won by Endura Racing rider Jonathan Tiernan-Locke, who became the first British rider to win the race in its current guise and the first to win a British tour since Chris Lillywhite won the 1993 Milk Race. Tiernan-Locke assumed the race lead with a second-place finish on the sixth stage and maintained the lead until the end of the race. He won by eighteen seconds ahead of Australia's Nathan Haas, who rode for the Garmin–Sharp squad, and the podium was rounded out by Liquigas–Cannondale's Damiano Caruso, who finished five seconds behind Haas and twenty-three seconds in arrears of Tiernan-Locke. In 2014 however, following investigation for biological passport irregularities, Tiernan-Locke was banned for two years and stripped of his 2012 victory.
context_section_description: 13 September 2012 – Stoke-on-Trent to Stoke-on-Trent, 147 km (91.3 mi)
  For the fifth successive year the Tour of Britain held a stage in Stoke-on-Trent, with the fifth stage of the race commencing at Trentham Gardens. The first sprint of the day was contested at only 7.3 km (4.5 mi) into the stage, at Stone. The second sprint point was situated at Uttoxeter and the final such point was located at Rocester. There were three categorised climbs during the stage, with two-second-category climbs coming in Glacial Boulder – at Cannock Chase – and Oakamoor respectively, while there was also a first-category climb at Gun Hill. The field remained together for the first hour of racing during the stage; at the first intermediate sprint point, Orica–GreenEDGE's Leigh Howard took three bonus seconds towards the general classification, ahead of Luke Rowe of Team Sky and Endura Racing rider Russell Downing.
  Three riders – Liquigas–Cannondale rider Ivan Basso, Bartosz Huzarski of Team NetApp and Team Raleigh–GAC's Bernard Sulzberger – were able to break clear before the second climb of the day at Oakamoor, also taking maximum points in the process at both of the intermediate sprints en route to the climb. Strong crosswinds at this point allowed the main field to split apart, forming echelons, and also allowed a group of 21 riders to break clear of the peloton, and ultimately joined up with Basso and Huzarski after Sulzberger was dropped to form a 23-man group. Thirteen of the race's seventeen teams were represented in the group, including four members – Howard, Boy Van Poppel (UnitedHealthcare) and Garmin–Sharp pairing Sep Vanmarcke and Nathan Haas – of the overnight top ten in the general classification. The distance between the leaders and the remains of the main field continued to increase, eventually reaching four minutes with around 20 km (12.4 mi) remaining, while race leader Mark Cavendish, of Team Sky, was four minutes further behind after losing contact on the earlier climbs.
  Cavendish eventually lost almost twelve minutes on the day, comfortably losing his race lead. In the lead group, Paul Voss (Endura Racing) misjudged a right-hand turn with 9 km (5.6 mi), with Marc de Maar of UnitedHealthcare and Saur–Sojasun rider Jérémie Galland also hitting the tarmac as a result. Galland had to abandon the race with a fractured collarbone. Galland's team-mate Jérôme Coppel then put in an attack on the group, closely followed by Haas before this was chased down. De Maar, having returned to the group after his fall, went on the attack with 6.5 km (4.0 mi) and was not brought back as the Curaçao national champion soloed to his first victory of the year by fifteen seconds. Vanmarcke beat out Van Poppel, Haas and Howard for second place, with Howard retaking the leader's gold jersey by seven seconds ahead of Van Poppel.
caption: Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish at the start of the stage. Cavendish lost the race lead on the stage, eventually losing almost twelve minutes on stage winner Marc de Maar of UnitedHealthcare.
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