Whilst still described as flat this stage is a really tough one which has three tough climbs in the last 35kms of the stage. The first of these is a lengthy 2nd category climb which is followed by a steep 3rd cat ascent before a late uncategorised dig before the finish.
As a by product we should get a new KoM before the big Genting stage tomorrow. Currently we have a three-way share of the jersey resulting from the break on the first road stage.
Jurgen Roelandts managed to take over the GC leaders jersey yesterday on time bonuses with two second places and a first he will be favourite today with his strong hill climbing ability compared to the the sprinters.
We get a break of three making it up the road.
The Sauber rider here is indeed Mundle one of the three way leaders in the KoM competition. Van Leijen is here, one of the riders who gained no bonuses from the five man break on stage three. Daniel is our third member of the break. None of the three are that close on GC with Van Leijen at 1.15 the best placed.
The three hotspot sprints are still contested, the results are the same at all three.
1st Daniel, 2nd Van Leijen, 3rd Mundle
We pick it up here as the race is on the mid stage 2nd category climb, by far the longest of the race so far.
The break still have a lead of five minutes despite the picture showing the pack behind.
Bouygues are forcing the pace with some help from Vespa and LukOil.
Daniel looks the strongest rider out of these three and confirms this by taking top points on the climb.
Mundle though moves into the provisional lead with second place just ahead of Van Leijen.
The pack have started to regulate the chase a bit keeping the gap pegged at around five minutes. Nobody goes for the minor points here leaving it to Lhotellerie and Mottin to mop up the 4th and 5th place points.
We jump to that difficult last section now and on the big first of the final three climbs the lead three have an advantage of under two minutes.
The pack are all still together despite some heavy winds on the valley road. Bouygues are doing the work, but it is LukOil and ING with riders forward today.
Coming out of the tunnel midway through the climb we can see an interesting move with five riders clear of the pack.
Iglinski, Jiriakov, Ratiy, Martin and Castano have pushed clear.
Vespa move to the front taken by surprise by this move.
Armavia and Vattenfall help close this dangerous move which in turn shuts down the three man break up front.
Jiriakov isn't done though with Iglinski marking.
Iglinski takes the cat 2 top points over Jiriakov, Feng leads the chase behind just in front of Castano and Garbelli and Cisco riders Vesely and Dyachenko.
The lead two struggle to hold their 40 second advantage on the way to a nightmarishly steep 3rd cat climb.
Iglinski takes the prime which is bizarrely midway up the climb, it moves him up to the top of the KoM standings.
ING are taking responsibility for this chase, they don't really want a rider like Iglinski snatching time today on Castano.
Larsson, Ji, Peraud are fairly well placed near the front here.
It's not a big surprise to see several riders dropped at the bottom of this climb.
Andriato, Ferrari, Lo Cicero, Manan, Manarelli, Laidler and Atkins are amongst those dropped.
10km to go our two attackers are still 30 to 40 seconds clear of the pack.
They still have this last uncategorised climb to get up. Meanwhile more confusing tactics from Armavia who drop several riders back to use Lo Cicero home, this includes Banihammad.
ING work hard on the descent and the short flat section to catch Jiriakov and Iglinski before this last climb.
Tony Martin however surprises everyone by attacking at the bottom of this short power climb under the 5km to go barrier.
Iglinski is left to chase this as the surviving sprinters queue up behind Roelandts.
Lorenzetto is on Roelandts wheel, with Nateghi, Guarnieri, Murray,
Crespo and Nishitani still around. Bazajev is right on Iglinski's wheel though.
Mottin in the best young riders jersey is off the back.
Martin crests the climb with 25 seconds advantage.
Iglinski leads the pack over with three sprinters close to him.
Those three sprinters are Bazajev, Roelandts and Lorenzetto. Castano is also here with Rabie also close by. Guarnieri has slipped back on this climb.
Martin descends brilliantly to extend his lead to over 30 seconds.
Bazajev leads the sprint behind with Roelandts possibly happy to hand the leaders jersey to teammate Martin today now in third, with Iglinski challenging as well as Lorenzetto.
Martin celebrates a well deserved win attacking on that late climb.
Roelandts has overhauled and trounced everyone in the sprint.
Some riders are tailling off.
This includes Ardila Cano and Jirakov.
Bazajev holds third place.
Popov and Schurter come through for 4th and 5th, Rabie is sixth ahead of Castano, Lorenzetto, Murray and Wu.
Martin doesn’t get a gap recorded up front but will take the overall lead. Ardila Cano however does lose 1.33 along with Jiriakov.
GC
The first GC shuffle since the time trial, with a few chrono men dropping off today. Martin though did the opposite attacking and snatching the GC leaders jersey off of Roelandts, lets see how well the German can climb Genting.
Points
Today proved too hard for Guarnieri and way too hard for Lo Cicero. It was a key day then for Roelandts, Bazajev and Lorenzetto to gain. The first two did, Lorenzetto not so much.
Rank
Name
Team
Points
General
1
Jurgen Roelandts
Bouygues Telecom
20
99
2
Assan Bazajev
ING Cycling - Project
16
64
3
Jacopo Guarnieri
Vespa-Aprilia Racing
0
58
4
Ivano Lo Cicero
PFG-Armavia
0
45
5
Tony Martin
Bouygues Telecom
25
45
6
Mirko Lorenzetto
Team UPC - Boehringer-Ingelheim
8
42
7
Carlos Alexandre Manarelli
Evian-MIAT
0
29
8
Gustav Larsson
Vattenfall Cycling
0
25
9
Rick Zabel
VolksWagen-Mapei
0
24
10
Tomohiro Hayakawa
Japanese - Korean Cycling Project
0
24
11
Rafael Andriato
Repsol-Cativen
0
22
12
Eric Baumann
Japanese - Korean Cycling Project
0
21
13
Michael Torckler
Team Cadbury - Schweppes
0
21
14
Anuar Manan
Meiji - Cannondale
0
20
15
Marcos Crespo
Vattenfall Cycling
0
20
16
Johann Rabie
MTN - World Bicycle Relief
10
18
17
Aaron Gate
Team Cadbury - Schweppes
0
18
18
Maxime Daniel
Evian-MIAT
18
18
19
Hugues Mottin
Bouygues Telecom
0
16
20
Carlos Castaño
ING Cycling - Project
9
16
KoM
Iglinski rode very strongly today and his reward is the mountains jersey. Castano also looked pretty good as did Ratiy, but is this wasted energy ahead of tomorrow?
Youth
19 out of 58 Under 25's finished in the front group, they now take up the first 19 positions in the youth standings. Ratiy is of course the outstanding favourite for this, but the minor placings should be interesting.
Name
Team
General Time
Vadim Ratiy
VolksWagen-Mapei
17h42'24 (1)
Chen Shikai
Meiji - Cannondale
+ 7 (2)
Daniel Schorn
VolksWagen-Mapei
+ 23 (3)
Louis Meintjes
MTN - World Bicycle Relief
+ 31 (4)
Tom David
Team Cadbury - Schweppes
+ 31 (5)
Ben King
ING Cycling - Project
+ 33 (6)
Hossein Alizadeh
Sauber Petronas Racing
+ 35 (7)
Michael Rodriguez Galindo
Repsol-Cativen
+ 36 (8)
Joshua Edmondson
Meiji - Cannondale
+ 40 (9)
Stefan Kung
Sauber Petronas Racing
+ 43 (10)
Adrien Petit
Evian-MIAT
+ 47 (11)
Tom Scully
Oz Cycling Project
+ 54 (12)
Stefano Locatelli
Bouygues Telecom
+ 58 (13)
Mikhel Ronimois
Vattenfall Cycling
+ 58 (14)
Georg Preidler
VolksWagen-Mapei
+ 1'00 (15)
Fabio Aru
ING Cycling - Project
+ 1'06 (16)
Daniel Vesely
Cisco Cycling Team
+ 1'09 (17)
Rick Zabel
VolksWagen-Mapei
+ 1'18 (18)
Nacer Bouhanni
Meiji - Cannondale
+ 1'20 (19)
Phan Age Haugard
VolksWagen-Mapei
+ 1'34 (20)
Simon Yates
Team Cadbury - Schweppes
+ 1'49 (21)
Daniel Ricardo Diaz
Evian-MIAT
+ 1'56 (22)
Aaron Gate
Team Cadbury - Schweppes
+ 2'10 (23)
Victor Shishelov
VolksWagen-Mapei
+ 2'22 (24)
Kristoffer Skjerping
Vattenfall Cycling
+ 2'33 (25)
Teams
Evian, JK Cycling, Repsol, UPC and of course Armavia lost time today.
