Wigan's Chris Lawless seals Tour de Yorkshire glory

Greg Van Avermaet, last year's overall winner, took the win on stage four from Halifax, but had Lawless - in the race leader's blue jersey - on his wheel as the 23-year-old from Wigan celebrated the first stage-race victory of his career.It was also a first win for Ineos, the new-look Team Sky following Sir Jim Ratcliffe's buy-out, with the team only relaunched on Wednesday ahead of this race.

Lawless' final margin of victory was just two seconds over Olympic champion Van Avermaet.

Ineos had brought the 175km stage through the Yorkshire Dales to life in Otley with a double attack.Chris Froome went first, drawing out Van Avermaet and Alexander Kamp, who started the day level on time with Lawless, before Eddie Dunbar moved again.The Irishman quickly caught the remnants of the day's breakaway and was in position to win the race himself as they moved into the final five kilometres before Van Avermaet stepped up the chase.Lawless followed however, meaning Van Avermaet had to make do with a stage win while the blue jersey stayed on Lawless' shoulders.

"I can't believe it," Lawless said. "If someone had told me that I'd win this race when I was coming here I'd call them bare-faced liar. I didn't think it was possible.

"I've got to really thank the team for putting faith in me. I've got a good history of performing on courses like this and the team looked at how I was going on the stage yesterday and said,'Yeah, we'll give you a shot' and I'm glad they did."