7th stage of Tour of California is coming up, and at this point, Zabriskie looks like the overall winner of this tour. Today's stage is flat, but there's a very short hill 20 kilometres from the finish line. Normally, it wouldn't be anything 'dangerous', but there may be a couple of GC-contenders who has eyed out the hill.
TV-break of the day was not exactly a bunch of new riders. I'm sure we have seen most of them before in other breaks, but here they go again: Illiano (Nintendo), Elmiger (Eurosport), Klimov (Domina), Devenyns (American Suzuki), Mori (Gazzetta), Mironov (Erste) and Kennaugh (Virgin) - a total of 7 riders with none of them being anywhere close on the GC.
These 7 worked very well together and established a gap of 10 minutes to the peloton. At this point, with 85 km. to go, Festina decided to start the chase wth support from Warner Brothers. Moments later, 50 km. to go, the gap is down to 4'15, and it's looking difficult for the breakaway riders. The peloton soon started 'weakening' though, and at times, the escapees even managed to increase the gap. With 25 km. to go, it certainly looked possible with a gap of 4 minutes - in fact, with 4 minutes, it will be impossible to get them. The group managed to get over the last hill with 3 minutes, and just 20 km. to go. All 7 riders are still there.
And the riders obviously knew that it was going to be between them. Devenyns attacks with 15 km. to go, but the other breakaway riders managed to neutralized it. Two riders weren't able to hang on to the increased pace, though -- Kennaugh and Mironov. Klimov also had to let go with just 5 km. to go, making it a battle between Mori, Devenyns, Illiano and Elmiger with Elmiger being the far best sprinter of them. Here's the four of them at the start of the sprint.
1 km to go, and Elmiger is meters ahead of the rest. Klimov has fought his way back to the front.
Elmiger takes the win ahead of Mori and Devenyns. Klimov looked very strong, but faded on the last meters.
1 minute later, Hushovd comes sprinting in, way ahead of the peloton.
