Elia Viviani missed out on victory by the finest of margins as stage seven at the Tour of Britain ended in a bunch sprint.

Team Sky hit the front late on the run into Ipswich and moved the Italian onto the wheel of Andre Greipel as the sprint took hold.

With Viviani diving to the left-hand side of the road to come around Greipel (Lotto Soudal) both men threw their bikes at the line, neither initially aware of who had taken victory. In the end it was the German who came out on top in one of the closest finishes in recent memory.

Pete Kennaugh had hit the front with 3.5km to go before Ian Stannard took it up and Ben Swift brought the peloton under the flamme rouge. Andy Fenn ensured Viviani was on the right wheel, while back in the pack Wout Poels was able to finish safely to retain a strong second place overall.

With just one stage remaining on the streets of London, Poels sits 13 seconds behind race leader Edvald Boasson Hagen (MTN-Qhubeka).

The race got off to a damp start, leading to a spate of punctures in the peloton leaving Fakenham. After a few iterations three riders - Alex Dowsett (Movistar), Graham Briggs (JLT Condor) and Gabriel Cullaigh (Great Britain) - went clear to make up the day's break.

Lotto Soudal committed themselves to the chase in a bid to set up a bunch sprint, while a late battle for mountain points saw domestic teams Madison Genesis and One Pro Cycling arrive at the front as it all came back together.

TeamSky.com caught up with Sports Director Servais Knaven on the way to London and the Dutchman talked them through a close finish.

"It does not get much closer than we saw today," he told TeamSky.com. "The position of the camera for the TV is not the same as the camera for the commissaires. It's not straight on the line so that's why it looks a bit different. We also thought Elia had won but we had a look at the photo finish and you could see it was Greipel.

"We've been working for almost the entire race and today it was for other teams to control the race. Everyone was a bit lucky that Madison Genesis controlled the race in the final for the KOM jersey. It was a pretty good run-in and the plan was to do a really fast lead-out for Elia.

"Elia was not happy to just miss out so he will be super motivated tomorrow. We're going to try again and it would be nice to get another stage win. Wout needs to stay safe to keep second place so that is what we will try to do."