A real lumpy one to greet the rider after that tough climb up Genting yesterday. It could prove a difficult one to control if raced hard with most of the difficulties in the second half of the stage.
Castano used his resources well on Genting, but notably struggled tactically in these sorts of stages last year and with Iglinski in attacking mood a couple of days ago we could well see an exciting day.
Three riders make up our break of the day as they forge clear in the first 10km.
Atkins and Gate both have points in the KoM comp with Kung also along for the ride.
Gate is the closest man on GC some 18 minutes plus down, so not a threat on GC at all, we shall see if the pack have the will to chase them down. In the meantime the gap builds.
They roll through the sprint Kung ahead of Gate and Atkins. As you’d expect ING all over the front of the pack.
There are three categorised climbs today, all rather stingily with just a four rating. Atkins and Gate have six and five points so far in the mountains comp though only Gate attacks for the full points.
Atkins just misses out to Kung which is a bit of a waste from the Cicso rider. These three though could have a big prize lady as their gap with 95km to go is 12 minutes.
With Gate now looking to endanger some GC places MTN and Oz Cycling come to the front to pace.
Atkins rolls through in first at the next sprint ahead of Gate and Kung, the trio no doubt told by now of their huge ten minute plus lead.
With the stage victory in target of they work together Gate abandons his KoM jersey quest seemingly settling behind Atkins and Kung at the next prime.
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Gate now has 11 And Atkins 10, both have a chance to move to third in this competition if they got for the last categorised climb.
Back in the pack a few riders are dropped including surprisingly Alarcon.
Though with ING back on the front things are back to a steady pace with those dropped back in the pack.
50km left and the break still have a whopping 12 minutes, with the pack not really committed to chasing. The last 50km obviously deemed not selective enough for GC men to have a go.
Gate decides to nip away and grab the last 4th cat climb ahead of Kung and Atkins. It means Gate will move to third in this classification.
Gate also rolls through the final sprint prime first ahead of Atkins and Kung. The lead is still being held at 12 minutes by ING. ING's slight increase in maintaining the gap has caused a few riders to drop including sprinters like Manarelli and Crespo.
But the pack is still a big 90 riders.
30km to go and the break can really start to believe that stage glory will be theirs. Finally something breaks in the pack as Bosisio attacks.
The Vespa man was 15th as 5.32 to begin with today, but just 30 seconds down on 9th placed Dyachenko. MTN make sure he cannot get away.
2nd on GC Iglinski is next to try.
Solar 10th at 5.02, Ji 5th at 2.09, Bosisio look to follow.
Up front the harmony in the lead three has gone at they are into to last 20kms with their lead now just under 10 minutes. Atkins attacks on a downhill.
Atkins is only able to prise out 10 or so seconds but as the weakest climber of the trio he has to try something.
Castano back in the pack is chasing down the GC break attempt himself.
This is shredding the pack up a bit with mainly sprinters and low GC placed riders dropping off. The highest placed rider dropping off is Shikai 23rd on GC and 4th in the young riders.
The penultimate climb is a nasty 9% hill of around 2.5 km length and Atkins is quickly reeled in by Kung and Gate.
Behind Iglinski still has a 30 second gap on his pursuers ( Ji, Solar, Bosisio) with Castano now being helped by Ratiy, Larsson and Serpa.
Vorontsov 13th at 5.15 now gets dropped from the pack as Bosisio, Ji and Solar are caught.
The pack reaches this tough wall with Iglinski caught by Alizadah, Dyachenko tries to nip away.
Castano marks this move immediately, he wants no more of this attacking nonsense.
Ji though has not given up and manages to prise open a gap.
It’s not much of a gap but it is shredding the pack.
Castano leads a chase group of 8 with Niyonshuti, Dyachenko, Peraud, Serpa, Alizadeh, Iglinski, Solar.
Behind Bosisio leads a chase group conceding seconds rapidly.
Larsson, Ratiy , Delgado, Sonnery, Rabie, Jiriakov, Khripta are here. Several riders then with leaders ahead.
Ardlia Cano realises he better move forward out of a large group of cruisers that are easing up behind the Ratiy/ Larsson group.
Osella 11th at 5.10 is in this cruising group and not making a move which will likely mean he plunges down GC.
The three leaders are in the last 10km and boy has their gap come down, it is down to 5 minutes. Fortunately there are no massive difficulties left for them. Atkins is still trying to get away though.
Five minutes back we have Ji still with 25 seconds over the Castano - Iglinski - Serpa group.
This group has almost a minute on the Ratiy, Larsson group. Ardila Cano has almost made it across to this group.
Larsson though see’s this and has ambitions to overtake the Colombian in GC and attacks himself.
6km to go for our three man break who are back together for a brief while before Atkins attacks again!
But under 5km to go and he is going nowhere.
These three ( Atkins, Kung, Gate lead then with 5km to go.
Ji is caught with 5km to go for the front chase group.
The lead trio enter the last 3km and Kung launches a sprint the others have nothing!
The front chase group ease back for a km or two allowing the other chasers to eat slightly into their lead. But soon launch into their sprint.
Gate and Atkins leave it until 800m to go before they can start to shake their bikes but Kung has gone.
He salutes the win, a great win for Sauber.
Gate takes second ahead of Atkins. Peraud leads the first chase group in about two minutes back..
Correction Iglinski just pips Peraud for 4th place.
Castano has maintained his jersey but has had to defend it despite what looked like it was going to be an easy day at one point.
Larsson could find himself caught by a sprinting Sonnery.
It’s a bad day for Ratiy, who finishes at the back of this group with Bosisio who still doesn’t get a great result.
Stage results
The frantic pace of attacks from the pack really splintered things at the end, the winners were the riders in the front chase group who all gained time on GC. Castano, Iglinski and Serpa maintain their top threes.
The breakaway though were given too much and Kung chased down most of Atkins' attacks, whilst Gate exhausted from mountain prime grabbing finished very tired.
GC
Ratiy seems to really lack tactical nous here, missing yet another move. A couple of teams moved one rider up and one rider down. Larsson falls a couple of places whilst Niyonshiti and Peraud move up. Gate moves up to 23rd from 44th.
Points
The last hilly day before three flat ones, GC riders Iglinski and Castano come into view as well as young Gate who could hold a points scoring position by the end of the race if he siezes some more breakaway points.
Mountains
Only the one 3rd category climb left in the race virtually guarentees Iglinski will win the King of the Mountains jersey. Gate protects the breakaway range position, he had a really good day today just missing the stage win.
Youth
Whilst three young guns made a name for themselves up front with Gate up to 4th, Kung up to 6th and Atkins up to 17th a number of youngsters tumbled down the youth standings. Shikai and Alarcon in particular.
Name
Team
General Time
Vadim Ratiy
VolksWagen-Mapei
26h47'14 (1)
Hossein Alizadeh
Sauber Petronas Racing
+ 43 (2)
Georg Preidler
VolksWagen-Mapei
+ 10'42 (3)
Aaron Gate
Team Cadbury - Schweppes
+ 12'51 (4)
Louis Meintjes
MTN - World Bicycle Relief
+ 16'22 (5)
Stefan Kung
Sauber Petronas Racing
+ 17'31 (6)
Michael Rodriguez Galindo
Repsol-Cativen
+ 17'41 (7)
Mikhel Ronimois
Vattenfall Cycling
+ 17'48 (8)
Yousef Mirza Banihammad
PFG-Armavia
+ 19'01 (9)
Meiyin Wang
PFG-Armavia
+ 19'17 (10)
Chun Kai Feng
PFG-Armavia
+ 19'19 (11)
Vassilis Adamou
PFG-Armavia
+ 19'43 (12)
Chen Shikai
Meiji - Cannondale
+ 21'35 (13)
Stefano Locatelli
Bouygues Telecom
+ 25'11 (14)
Pablo Andres Alarcon
PFG-Armavia
+ 25'25 (15)
Joshua Edmondson
Meiji - Cannondale
+ 25'29 (16)
Josh Atkins
Cisco Cycling Team
+ 26'06 (17)
Kristoffer Skjerping
Vattenfall Cycling
+ 28'59 (18)
Ben King
ING Cycling - Project
+ 29'04 (19)
Fabio Aru
ING Cycling - Project
+ 29'14 (20)
Teams
Amazing ride from Sauber today with a rider in each of the front three groups, Iglinski rode high but some of his teammates were clearly on a huge comedown from Genting as they just hold off and almost equally disappointing VolksWagen.
