It might be the last chance for the GC riders to improve their position. And as we have a cobbled stage, in especially those will try to pass the puncheurs, who were favoured so far. Cancellara as 2nd is the biggest favourite of course as Coppel is no cobbler at all. More chances for Milka might have Bewley, who just like Boonen, Summerhill or Nuyens is still well placed for the GC fight.
Huge breakaway today and lots of them are decent cobblers. Trentin Kruopis Rojas Gil Eeckhout Vanmarcke Minoungou Sinner Ghyllebert Joseph Duran Bonnet Fenn
Pokerstars, Milka and B&O do the early pace. In especially Joseph could become a GC threat as he is one of the better cobblers and is just 6'36 behind race leader Coppel but far less behind the other top10 riders of course.
115km to go and the 12 riders pass the KoM sprint with Rojas, Joseph and Minoungou taking the points.
6'40 is the gap and Joseph is in the virtual lead.
Despite having 12 teams in the front, we still have some strong teams behind. Also Simply Red Bull, UBS and at times Koenigsegg are sending riders into the wind now and the gap melts again with 100km to go.
The first cobbles are reached and Vanmarcke as one of the strongest leads the group here. Now it will be interesting to see if they lose or gain on the paves.
Most helpers behind are weaker than those cobblers in the breakaway.
But then it`s good to have a luxury helper like Nolf, who is one of the best cobblers in the peloton but still only Boonen`s helper.
Also De Vocht, Nepomnyachsniy and sometimes Kluge are more than decent cobblers.
In the end though the gap pretty much stayed at ~4min with 67km to go during the first section.
For those who were surprised about B&O doing the early pace. Here is the answer. Kruijswijk surely isn`t the best cobbler but he is one of the very best allrounders. As long as there is not long mountain, you must expect him to do fairly well. In especially those late attacks perfectly suits him, so it`s no surprise to see him going first. with 46km to go. As 15th with +2'56 he has good chances to improve.
He though was caught pretty quick as Heineken, Swedbank and Koenigsegg weren`t happy.
So he is trying again ~10km later.
Again no success but at least he is reaching something. The group starts to split due to him making the race more difficult. Something the other teams, in especially Simply Red Bull and Pokerstars seem to ignore the fact, that a high pace is their only chance to drop the puncheurs. Also Puma or Koenigsegg would need to do something more.
For Wikipedia and Milka it`s less a surprise as they have Coppel and Van Garderen being better placed as their cobblers.
And surprisingly the GC riders are doing very well so far and are in the first positions, no matter if cobbler or not.
Cancellara, Schumacher, Gilbert, Boonen, Kruijswijk, Pozzato, Kluge, Nuyens, Franzoi, Bewley, Van der Velde, Van Garderen, Langeveld, Ballan, Verbist, Posthuma, Croket, Monfort, Clement, Summerhill, Coppel, Sinkeldam, Steurs, Blythe, Claeys, Guldhammer, Wyss, Ten Dam all in the first group in that order. So Ballan ~ half of the field. And so Coppel one of those in bigger problems than some others.
So Danacik, Di Maggio, Rowe, Burghardt, Diggle, Vandborg the biggest names behind together with most sprinters.
But the cobbler teams ruin the split and don`t even try to drop riders like Coppel. Pokerstars, Red Bull, Puma stop their chasing and Koenigsegg and B&O are doing a low pace. So everything is back together again. and the gap to the breakaway is again up to 4min with 25km to go.
Instead of highering the pace with Nolf, De Vocht etc. for a longer term which would hurt the puncheurs a lot more probably, the leaders attack themselves. Cancellara followed by Boonen.
But Gilbert, Kruijswijk, Pozzato immediately follow and close the gap again.
Boonen tries it another time on the next section.
Koenigsegg always keeping the pace high, but not too high. So the attackers have less chances but as the pace keeps a consistend tempo, the puncheurs don`t struggle too much.
This trio proves to be the strongest today as again Boonen, Cancellara and Kruijswijk have a small gap with 14km to go and this time we have another split behind with only 25 riders following.
Coppel is dropped! The yellow jersey in huge problems it seems. Let`s try to see where the other GC riders are.
So some huge surprises as many cobblers are dropped while the strongest puncheurs are still in the first chasing group!
The trio was caught already and instead of keeping the pace high, the riders wait and allow the later group to come back...what a stupid tactic here. Pokerstars has 5 riders in heere and also the other GC riders had at least 1-2 helpers but they were not interested and so Coppel is back with 5km to go and the breakaway is again 4'30 ahead..
Again the same three riders attack. But actually they just exhaust themselves and so they are caught soon afterwards by Koenigsegg, Pendeltons and Swedbank.
We reach the last 10km and slowly the cobblers has to change their tactic as there are still 88 riders in there.
This time the trio are joined by Pozzato in a next attempt.
And this time they don`t just sit up and keep a higher pace. That said, Kruijswijk wasn`t able to follow them and is back in the 83 rider group including the puncheurs. Will this finally open a gap? It would deliver Cancellara the GC win.
The stage win though goes to the breakaway who did profit from the attack & stop tactic behind.
Bonnet perfectly leads out Trentin here and those are teh strongest sprinters eventually together with Fenn in 4th position. Joseph as 3rd also in a good position. Eeckhout, Vanmarcke and Minoungou also in that group while Rojas Gil and Kruopis can`t follow and Sinner and duran are also dropped.
Ghyllebert the most unlucky of the breakaway as he crashed in the final and now being almost caught by the peloton.
Trentin easily the fastest here getting a good gap under the flamme rouge.
Big win for him. After yesterdays disaster around Posthuma, where he also lost all GC chances, he rewards himself and the team with a nice victory.
Bonnet takes a strong 2nd after being in the worst position ahead of Fenn in 3rd. Vanmarcke and Joseph follow next and the GC improvement of last will depend on the peloton now.
Just in time for the sprint the trio is caught and we have a 86 rider sprint...surely the cobblers have expected something else here. But where is Coppel? He isn`t around the corner yet but is obviously part of the peloton here. He has to hope for no gaps now!
Bewley easily takes the win of that group as he saved all his energy. Ghyllebert just being caught as 2nd here at least ahead of Cancellara, who might have lost the GC due to the slow pace at times. And +2'59 also means that Joseph won`t improve too much.
The sprint 2-3 gaps and now we have to wait for the officials.
The first gap behind the Cancellara group with Schumacher, Ballan, Pozzato, Boonen, Summerhill, Gilbert.
In this 2nd group we have Steurs as first but also Van Garderen, Kruijswijk or Franzoi.
The next group has Coppel inside. Does he lose the GC on the last 3km after fighting his way back over the cobbles?
Also in there Hoogerland, Claeys, Monfort, Wyss, Clement or Vandborg.
But good news for all of them. The race officials counted the group at 3km within the same time as the groups in the finish as the gaps obviously weren`t big enough. This keeps Coppel in the lead and destroys all hopes of the cobblers. But in the end they have to blame themselves as their teams always allowed the puncheurs to come back. Huge tactical fail here by several teams.
Tomorrows stage though could deliver a better GC position mainly for the sprinters as anything but a sprint would be a surprise.
So Boonen could improve from 9th to 6th with a win while Bewley could climb from 16th to 12th.
And we have also some bad news for some others. A group of dropped riders lost 10min today. In that group some surprises like Nuyens, Di Maggio or Tom Diggle. Surely the biggest losers of that cobbled stage.
