It`s the first hilly stage of this race. Next to the steep climbs the biggest difficulty might be some very narrow roads on the second hill. There the favourites must be concentrated to stay in the first group.
Also the last kilometer has again a steep uphill section so a real puncheur could win today.
Next to the mentioned race favourites we must have an eye on Anthony Roux
today as he is the strongest puncheur in this race.
The first attack was successful today.
Dainius Kairelis
Michal Kwiatkowski
Mike Aaron Egger
Kairelis takes the only KoM sprint today ahead of Egger and Kwiatkowski an so will become the first KoM leader.
Oz Cycling is doing their job to defend the leader jersey and do the pace in the peloton.
Emu Export`s Kairelis also takes the mid stage intermediate sprint. This time ahead of Kwiatkowski with Egger being 3rd.
Same teams but another group.
Already at the begin of the 2nd hill some sprinters fall back and might suffer a lot for the rest of today. Surely the stage is harder than it looks.
De Fauw, Bouhanni and Gavazzi can`t follow the peloton.
Staf Scheirlinckx is sent to the front to do a high pace now. Now the most dangerous part begins.
One short acceleration by Hollister and half the peloton is having a gap to the rest.
The biggest favourites had been lucky and are in the first half but some decent climbers lost contact.
Morizot, Feillu
Jaramillo, Ortega, Duenas Nevado
Orozco, Montenegro, Krasnoporov
Sano, Doi
Lewis, Khalmuratov
all lost contact on these ramps.
Just a few hundred meters further the yellow jersey of Cheung also falls back and is in between both groups now. More surprising that Veloso is another rider falling back now.
Just 12 riders are in the first group. Especially Hollister and Jayco are well presented here.
Kiserlovski, Scheirlinckx, Proni, Pantano Gomez
Gadret, Calzati, Moreno
Augustyn
Sicard
Carrara
Roux
and a bit surprising also
Ford
After missing all their GC riders in the first group some more horror news for Aker. Mauricio Ortega crashes and Jaramillo waits for him and falls back.
Ford falling back isn`t that surprising. But the later Hollister rider is no one else than Robert Kiserlovski. Pantano immediately waits as also the other 2 team mates.
At the same time the group is caught, so that Augustyn and Carrara have a team mate at their side again.
Time for Jayco-RedBull to take profit of this new situation. Calzati and Moreno immediately move to the front and higher the pace.
With the help of his team mates Kiserlovski comes back to the group. But as Jayco wasn`t doing too fast the whole group slowed down a bit and later riders came closer again.
Sicard with the first attack is opening the final.
Roux and Calzati follow him but also Augustyn.
So Carrara, Gadret and Kiserlovski are also forced to follow.
These 7 riders join together and have a nice lead of almost 2 minutes to the next group, where the pace is totally gone as all their leaders are in this group.
Sicard winning the 2nd intermediate and takes 6s. Calzati as 2nd steals his team leader Gadret (3rd) 2s in the sprint. Probably this didn`t work as supposed.
No one wants to do the pace and Calzati again isn`t doing anything for his leader. So there is no longer a good pace in the leading group.
The next group became bigger and especially Pirelli`s Busche and Meiji`s duo Sano/Doi are doing a lot of work to come back.
The first riders being able to bridge the gap are the two Hollister helpers Scheirlinckx and Proni and they immediately do the pace again.
With 10km to go the 2min advance is gone and Sano/Doi/Busche worked their way back with several riders taking profit of their work.
When the next group around some sprinters like Haedo is also close to come back again, Roux and Kiserlovski attack with 4,5km to go.
For some reason Kiserlovski`s team mates are supporting the rest in the sprint. What are they doing there?
Kiserlovski is still in the lead but Sicard, Gadret and Carrara are coming on the right side.
But it`s enough. The Croatian wins the stage. Was it just a bluff, when he had problems on the hill?
Sicard and Gadret are following him taking some bonus seconds with all other favourites not losing time today.
And due to the slow pace from them plus an amazing sprint by Haedo their group totally regrouped with the favourites just before the finish and also won`t lose time.
Pretty good news for many riders such as Veloso, Krasnoperov, Morizot or the Aker and Oz guys.
Nevertheless the yellow jersey will once again change today. Stage winner Kiserlovski will wear it tomorrow leading by 2s over Sicard and former leader Cheung.
