Peter Kennaugh and Chris Froome strongly placed Down Under

As had been the case the day before, Kennaugh and teammate Chris Froome attacked inside the closing kilometres although they were unable to clinch a British one-two again as they finished third and fourth respectively.

Orica GreenEdge's Caleb Ewan took victory but Kennaugh strengthened his race lead and stayed at the top of the sprint classification.

Froome remained second overall, 13 seconds behind Kennaugh, although he did relinquish the King of the Mountains jersey to Chris Harper.

"The whole stage was quite exciting. Avanti took it up on the main climb, I wasn't too sure why, perhaps they were going for the King of the Mountains points, but either way it made it an exciting race and the stage really hard," said Kennaugh.

"I think that's partly why it split in the crosswinds at the end, because everyone was racing on tired legs.

"Then we turned left towards that climb and I got on the radio to the guys, said give it everything, and it split pretty quickly.

"I gave it one last dig at the end but I knew it was always going to be hard to shake Caleb [Ewan] off. He stuck to my wheel though, so then I just stuck with him and rode in."