The sprinters allowed the break to take the day yesterday, with just three stages left time is running out for the sprint men to add to their tallies.
No crashes yesterday though with some late sprints today we could see some interesting action with sprinters such as Mark Cavendish Gerald Ciolek Marco Guillén
and Danilo Napolitano
possibly in the frame to take the green jersey off of race leader Marco Marzano
We get an earlu break of four riders that will hoover up the opening primes.
Jordi Simon Yonathan Monsalve Lieuwe Westra Masaaki Kikuchi
Simon takes the sprint ahead of Westra and Monsalve, with Monsalve edging ahead by the KoM prime with Kikuchi and Simon in his wake.
Behind five riders are able to chase up to these four to makea break of nine riders.
Roman Kilun Wilmer Vasquez Michael Vink Emilien Viennet
and Massimiliano Maisto
make up the chase.
Vasquez is by far the most dangerous being 19th on GC ten and a half minutes back. He doesn't get involved in the second KoM prime taken by Westra over Maisto and Monsalve. No changes really in that competition and disappointment really for Vink who seemed to be working for those points yesterday.
Vasquez's presence in the break probably doomed it as first VolksWagen and then Proximus and Unicredit chase it down.
Clearly the sprinters fancy this one today but they cannot draw the break back until after the two sprin primes the order at the first of the two late ones is Westra, Monsalve and Simon with the final one going to Vasquez over Maisto and Viennet.
As we enter the last 15km though the break is doomed as Unicredit up the ante.
The catch is made in the last 6 kilometres with Sergio Ortega
leading it over Boy Van Poppel Fabio Borghesi Danilo Napolitano Gerald Ciolek Marco Guillén Mark Cavendish Blaise Sonnery Taiji Nishitani Remco Te Brake
and Michael Matthews
Van Poppel does a monster turn between 4km to go and 2km to go and no-one can really get near to the Unicredit domination. Napolitano's problem though is that Ciolek is fixed to his wheel with Guillen and Cav so close behind.
Van Poppel pulls off and Borghesi takes it under the kite, it is clear to see Napolitano is leaving it as late as possible.
Ciolek eases inside of the Italian and Napolitano immediately goes down the middle so to distance himself from the German. Cavendish cannot find room for a decent sprint and finds himself in a dogfight with Guillen and Sonnery.
Ciolek cannot close and Unicredit can sense their first victory and season goal in the bank so to speak.
Unstoppable perfect sprint train work from Unicredit today as Napolitano takes the win and also the Points jersey for today's efforts. Colek second, Cav third and Guillen fourth.
No Major GC changes today as we head into the last two stages.
