A sprinter stage to start this tour and the favourites are 2 Frenchies, we're all doomed. Nazon and Casper are the favourites mentioned but there are a couple of other riders who could suprise.
Off the front today we have Albert and he is pursued by Horrillo and Jamieson, who bridge up fairly quickly. Albert managed to grab maximum points at the KOM point and will therefore wear the respective jersey in the next stage. At the intermediate sprint Horrillo took the maximum points and seconds ahead of Jamieson and of course Albert. Unfortunatley for Albert though, his sprint isn't as fast as the other 2 and he gets dropped from the front group.
Suddenly, with about 55kms to the finish we have 5 riders who have broken off the front of the peleton. Kopp, Zberg, Meirhaeghe, Tankink and Cruz, who is just behind them, are the riders strong enough to break away.
Bad luck for Designa though as Muravjev punctures, a couple of teammates drop back to help him but he never sees the peleton again. This is because Nippo hit the front with a furious pace, working for their sprinter Nazon.
Due to the increase in pace, with 18kms to go the Kopp group get brought back and the peleton sprint will decide the stage winner.
With 3kms to go we have the sprinters in positions. On the near side we have Dean leading out Nazon and on the far side we have Grillo leading out Casper, Tombak, Van Heeswijk, Traksel, Dekkers and Radochla. In the middle we have a little Tinkoff train with Wrolich leading out Usov, Zanotti and Bongiorno. Other sprinters are too far back to be considered for the win.
During the sprint Van Dijk goes down! It's a miracle that he doesn't bring anyone down with him and even more of a miracle that he manages to stay within the bunch and even sprint from the back.
With 1km to go Casper is in the lead, and because everyone else is allready sprinting into the wind he has no competition...apart from Nazon. He is still in Dean's wheel and is the only competitor to Casper now, will he come out of Dean's wheel in time to snatch the victory?
No! Casper wins after a great lead-out by Grillo. I've no idea why Grillo led him out but he did it very well. Nazon was, however, the best sprinter of the day. He came out of Dean's wheel like a bullet, should he have gone earlier or the line a bit further away he would've won the race, but he didn't so it's a nice win for Casper.
For some weird reason 3 riders decided to call it a day when they reached their team bus' at the end of the race, when none of them had fallen or punctured or anything. Gomes Colinas, Kreuziger and Hugo Peña were the withdrawees.
I am 100% sure I pressed the export button, because I have a screen with the button indented, for some reason it hasn't exported so you'll have to make do with the top 10.
