The stage through the Ardennes might be the highlight for the puncheurs and so they need to attack the cobblers and time trialists of course. It might be their last chance to gain time.
170km aren`t the longest for a Ardennes stage but everyone knows the toughness of those hills.
Franzoi Rast Tolleson Fouquet
form the break of the day. Interesting to see a good cobbler in there as also team mates of puncheurs Gilbert and Pozzato. Could lead to some nice tactics. Gallego Martin is a bit behind but the Spaniard never is able to find contact.
Franzoi continues to collect the KoM points. He was 12th before the stage with 8 points. So the others are not much behind him.
With so many KoM points to get today, we might see a new leader.
90km to go and the rain became stronger. This also leads to dangerous situations in the corners. This time one of the high GC riders is down as Posthuma hits the asphalt. This looked nasty.
With every hill, Rast looks stronger and stronger and so he takes the Cat.1 ahead of Tolleson and Franzoi.
Di Maggio, Nuyens and Roux also went for the last points and attacked out of the peloton. While it looked like a GC attack at first, they are back in the pack very quickly.
6 helpers did wait for Posthuma including Ten Dam and Trentin. But the pace is very high at the moment as the 14 dropped riders ahead show.
It will be a huge task for them to come back.
Only Sinkeldam is left in the peloton for the team.
Pendletons and Wikipedia highered the pace. They can`t wait for Postuma of course. If there leaders want to gain time on the cobblers, they need to keep a high pace to exhaust them as much as possible.
Good news for Posthuma. After a long 20km chase they are back in the peloton. But we are in the middle of the Cat.2 climb and they need to come to the front quick.
As there was a split in the peloton on that climb, the Project 1 riders find themselves again in a dropped group. Interesting though that Ten Dam, Giling or Rosseler all were on the right side of the split while Posthuma wasn`t. He might be injured.
Also being dropped is Wiggle`s Fenn.
But he is fighting hard to secure a good GC and has a brilliant team around him. So he comes back once again.
Not again...on every hill now Posthuma isn`t able to follow and his teammates have to wait for him.
Rast surely is the strongest here and collects a lot of points recently.
Tolleson and Franzoi fight for the next positions while Fouquet seems to be the weakest.
Out of the peloton once again Di Maggio and Roux to take the next points while Gallego Martin is caught now but takes the last 2 points.
The acceleration drops more riders next to Posthuma such as cobbler Steurs.
40km to go and we have some attacks: Roux Di Maggio Hoogerland Wyss Nuyens, who seems to be very active today. Goo news for tomorrows cobbled stage?
Milka immediately highers the pace again with Posthuma now being 3min behind the 92 rider peloton.
The 5 attackers join the breakaway and have a 1'20 gap now with 34km to go.
Di Maggio attacked on the third last Cat.2 and has a small gap. He totally destroyed the breakaway as behind him Nuyens and Roux are together ahead of Hoogerland with Rast following. Then Wyss and Tolleson and Franzoi and Fouquet as last.
The peloton though is now 3'1 behind Di Maggio and obviously isn`t realizing the danger of in especially Nuyens.
The slow pace allowed dropped riders to come back again. So also Posthuma is back in the peloton once again. What a great fight from him today.
But with 20km to go several teams have sent a guy to the front to improve the pace. Time to start the final.
Nuyens though somehow is gone in the front and is back in the peloton! Shocking news for Puma as he was in a great position.
Di Maggio leads 1'30 ahead of Rast, Wyss, Roux and Hoogerland with the peloton following another 2min.
Van Garderen attacks with 4km to go. He is followed by Gilbert and more riders are dropped now like Burghardt, Steurs, Vanmarcke, Hermans, Blythe or Rowe.
Posthuma this time is able to hang in the peloton.
More riders attack behind the duo: Pozzato Schumacher Claeys Monfort Coppel Diggle Clement Kruijswijk Danacik
Meanwhile Franzoi is dropped out of the peloton. His breakaway attempt did not work out and tomorrow he can at least try something again.
Also Posthuma is dropped and Trentin, Rosseler and Ten Dam have to wait for him again. Eventually going for Trentin instead would be the smarter now.
6km for Di Maggio and as he is 2'50 ahead of the rest of the attackers and another 54s ahead of the peloton, he is quite save. Most likely his 2nd stage win here.
Here comes Cancellara. He knows that he is hard to beat when limiting the loss today. And he is actually following Tom Boonen here. What a move by the Belgium to bridge the gap to the strong puncheurs!
Both will make it into the 15 rider group now and the puncheur obviously failed in making the race difficult enough.
For some reason Swedbank is doing the pace behind even though their leader Hoogerland is ahead. B&O is the other team as Kruijswijk was not able to reach the group.
Di Maggio already is in the corner but has lost a lot of time.
Gilbert, Schumacher and Van Garderen are the strongest here and have a small gap.
Then Claeys, Pozzato an Monfort ahead of Coppel, Cancellara and the others.
Schumacher with his full power goes strong while the peloton is mixing with the group now.
Di Maggio though takes his 2nd stage win. But as he lost a lot of time his GC position won`t become too huge. Eventually a top10 though after todays stage.
Schumacher leads in the next group with a 25s gap to the winner only. Van Garderen 3rd ahead of Monfort and Gilbert.
Claeys and Pozzato lost a bit in the end and finished 15s behind them.
Wyss with a strong stage today leading in the peloton ahead of Boonen and Cancellara. +1'12 for those and so just 47s behind the strongest puncheurs.
This will keep Coppel in the lead with Cancellara still 2nd. Schumacher, Gilbert, Van Garderen, Danacik, Monfort and Pozzato next but they are all weaker cobblers than Cancellara and also Boonen as 9th is a huge GC danger now.
Di Maggio at least climbs to 10th at the moment but isn`t expected to keep contact tomorrow.
Also Bewley, Ballan, Summerhill should be able to climb a lot tomorrow in the cobbled stage, while most of the others lost too much in the hills.
One of those days you just want to forget. +6'08 in the end after fighting back so many times. Horrible stage for Posthuma and as he looks injured it`s unlikely to see him in top form tomorrow. His 3rd in the GC changed to 46th unfortunately. Sinkeldam as 40th their best placed rider now.
Also a bad news for Cancellara and Red Bull. Their rider Aulas had to abandon the race for unknown reasons.
Result
1
Cesare Di Maggio
Pro Team Venchi - Sugoi
4h47'31
2
Stefan Schumacher
UBS - BMC
+ 25
3
Tejay Van Garderen
Wikipedia
s.t.
4
Maxime Monfort
Lotto - Cervelo
s.t.
5
Philippe Gilbert
Pendleton's
s.t.
6
Dimitri Claeys
Lotto - Cervelo
+ 40
7
Filippo Pozzato
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
s.t.
8
Marcel Wyss
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
+ 1'12
9
Tom Boonen
Pokerstars.com
s.t.
10
Fabian Cancellara
Simply Red Bull
s.t.
11
Anthony Roux
Team Bacardi
s.t.
12
Stef Clement
Pokerstars.com
s.t.
13
Johnny Hoogerland
Swedbank-PEAB
s.t.
14
Tom Diggle
Wiggle Professional Cycling Team
s.t.
15
Maciej Paterski
Vesuvio - Accumalux
s.t.
16
Rasmus Guldhammer
Team B&O
s.t.
17
Jerome Coppel
Milka - AVG
s.t.
18
Jukka Vastaranta
Pearl Adidas
s.t.
19
Frantisek Rabon
Milka - AVG
s.t.
20
Daniel Oss
Pro Team Venchi - Sugoi
s.t.
21
Alessandro Ballan
Koenigsegg
s.t.
22
Ramon Sinkeldam
Project 1t4i
s.t.
23
Jelle Wallays
Pokerstars.com
s.t.
24
Toms Skujins
Vesuvio - Accumalux
s.t.
25
Danny Summerhill
Wikipedia
s.t.
26
Michael Albasini
UBS - BMC
s.t.
27
Kleber Silva
Pendleton's
s.t.
28
Nick Nuyens
Team Puma - SAP
s.t.
29
Steven Kruijswijk
Team B&O
s.t.
30
Salvatore Mancuso
Team Bacardi
s.t.
31
Bauke Mollema
Festina-Canal+
s.t.
32
Sam Bewley
Milka - AVG
s.t.
33
Nick Kinney
Wikipedia
s.t.
34
Christopher Juul-Jensen
Aker - MOT
s.t.
35
Ricardo Van der Velde
Team Bacardi
s.t.
36
Sebastian Langeveld
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
