Dylan van Baarle became a surprise winner of the Tour of Britain when he finished the final sprint stage safely after having defended himself well in the time trial. The result exceeded his own expectations as he had only hoped for a top 10 against the high-level competition.

Garmin Sharp's Dylan Van Baarle clinched overall victory at the Tour of Britain, as Marcel Kittel book ended the race with a stage victory in central London.

The Giant Shimano rider outsprinted Mark Cavendish on Whitehall in the sprint battle that British spectators had been waiting all week to see, with Kittel just edging Cavendish, ahead of Italian Nicola Ruffoni.

Behind Van Baarle crossed the line in 29th position to seal overall victory by ten seconds over Michal Kwiatkowski, who also took the Points Jersey, with Bradley Wiggins taking third overall, 22 seconds down, having won the morning's 8.8-kilometre individual time trial.

Wiggins had taken victory in the time trial ahead of Sylvain Chavanel and Steve Cummings, clocking a 9:50:71 around the London circuit. Meanwhile Van Baarle finished eleventh, 25 seconds back, ceding just nine seconds to sixth placed Kwiatkowski.

With a lead of ten seconds in the General Classification, only disaster or a freak result in the sprint finish would prevent the Dutchman keeping hold of the Yellow Jersey, and that's how it proved.

"I didn't really win the race today, - won it in Brighton yesterday," said Dylan Van Baarle afterwards. "It was tough to defend my jersey in a time trial against Kwiatkowski but I did it and I'm very happy, I will remember this day for my whole life.

"I like these kind of stage races very much - not too long - but at the start of the week when I saw the list of riders, guys like Wiggins and Kwiatkowski I knew it was going to be very hard. I was hoping for perhaps top ten.

"It's been a very hard race, the roads are heavy, lots of little steep climbs but also the six man teams is a factor. It makes it really exciting as we saw in the stage of Alex Dowsett on Friday when the peloton were pulling and pulling and could not catch the break. That ride inspired me a little bit for our break on Saturday.

"In the future I would like to develop into a Classics rider - Roubaix and Flanders - and also races like this. I am probably too heavy to be a Grand Tour rider!"