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Team Katusha's Ben Swift became the first home rider to clinch stage victory of this year's Tour of Britain with a blistering finish in Yeovil.

The 21-year-old, who finished third in stage one of the eight-day race, broke clear of the peloton with just a kilometre to go of the penultimate 159.7km stage from Hatherleigh to Yeovil to clinch stage seven in three hours 52 minutes and 19 seconds.

Swift, who was crowned King of the Mountains in 2007, was joined by team-mate Filippo Pozzato of Italy in his dart for the line leaving Edvald Boasson Hagen, who had topped the podium in the previous four stages, forced to settle for third.

The Norwegian continues to dominate overall proceedings however, and retains his watertight grip on the yellow jersey as well as the points competition, while Thomas De Gendt, who sealed the King of the Mountains competition on Thursday, put the finishing touches to the sprints competition.

The first casualty of the day came before the race began with Britain's Ian Wilkinson forced to withdraw due to illness and the injuries he sustained due to his crash on the Blackpool stage.

The first meaningful break came after 30km when Spain's Aitor Galdos and Russia's Evgeni Petrov opened-up a gap of two minutes on the chasing peleton.

A chasing group of seven riders including Germany's Tony Martin and yesterday's breakaway leader Geraint Thomas mounted their challenge and caught the leaders at the village of Tiverton after 50km.

But the peleton, again marshalled by Team Columbia-HTC, quickly reeled the leading pack in and after a number of threatened escapes, it was Norway's Stian Remme and British road race champion Kristian House who made the next move.

The duo quickly opened up a lead of four minutes and 38 seconds over the pack but the Columbia-led peleton slowly but surely upped the tempo in the closing stages.

House was dreaming of a maiden Tour of Britain stage victory but as the peleton reached the final climb at Chinnock Hollow, the breakaway duo had been caught.

But Swift and Pozzato stole a march on the rest of the field in the closing stages and opened up a lead of 50m over the peleton and as the pair closed in on the finishing line, the Brit outgunned his team-mate to clinch victory.

Boasson Hagen remains 23 seconds ahead of closest challenger Kai Reus as the peleton heads to London for the final stage of the race on Saturday, a 92km criterium around the capital.

After the stage Swift was quick to praise his team-mates before pledging his future to Team Katusha.

"I'm absolutely delighted to get my first win and to get it on British soil makes it even more special," he said.

"The boys in the team worked so hard for me and to have Fillippo Pozzato finish in second behind me made it even more amazing.

"But Fillippo and I managed to get away and get a gap of about 50m which turned out to be enough in the end.

"We knew we had to ride well because Columbia had got Boasson Hagen into another good position but we had enough and managed to hold him off.

"I room with Fillippo and he teaches me some Italian and gives me a lot of help so I'm glad I got the win for him as well.

"As far as the future is concerned I'm signed to Katusha for another year so that's where I'll be doing my racing."

More than the Games / Eurosport