Tour of Britain Stage 6: Petacchi does it again

Italian sprint king Alessandro Petacchi snatched his second stage win of this year's Tour of Britain today. Stage 6 from Darlington to Newcastle ended with an almost an exact re-run of Sunday's first stage in London with Petacchi outsprinting Britain's Rob Hayles to claim the win after the peloton swept up a four man break to set up things up for the sprinters. Double stage winner (stages 4 and 5) Edval Boasson Hagen (Columbia), was third. Today's result did not affect the standings at the top of the general classification with Geoffroy Lequartre (Agritubel) holding on to his yellow jersey from Britain's Steve Cummings who is still six seconds behind. It was all change though in the points competition with Petacchi now back in top spot. Ben Swift is still the man in possession of the King of the Mountains' polka dot jersey and now must be fairly confident of holding on to it to the finsih. Tomorrow's stage sees the riders head into Scotland to tackle the 153Km route from Glasgow to Drumlanrig Castle Tour of Britain stage six results: 1 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) LPR Brakes, 3hrs 45mins 9secs 2 Rob Hayles (GB) Great Britain, at same time 3 Edval Boasson Hagen (Nor) Team Columbia, at same time 4 Russell Downing (GB) Pinarello, at same time 5 Malcolm Elliott (GB) Pinarello RT, at same time 6 Ben Swift (GB) Great Britain, at same time 7 Jonathan Bellis (GB) Team CSC-Saxo Bank, at same time 8 Romain Feillu (Fra) Agritubel, at same time 9 Kenny Lisabeth (Bel) An Post, at same time 10 Chris Sutton (Aus) Garmin-Chipotle, at same time Selected others: 13 Geoffroy Lequarte (Fra) Agritubel, at same time 14 Steve Cummings, (GB) Barloworld, at same time 28 Ian Stannard (GB) Great Britain, at 5secs 41 Roger Hammond (GB) Team Columbia, at 12secs 47 Geraint Thomas (GB) Barloworld, at 56secs 70 Bradley Wiggins (GB) Team Columbia, at 6mins 17secs 75 David Millar (GB) Garmin-Chipotle, at 8mins 18secs 76 Chris Newton (GB) Rapha-Condor, at same time