The first of the two main mountaintop finishes runs towards Cypress Mountain. Along the way, however, we have 8 gruelling laps of a circuit in Braemer Park. The climb is 5.6km long and is divided into two halves with a false flat in between them. The first half is a 6% average and the second half goes up to about 7.5%. 4 of these climbs offer 5 mountain points. Finally, the finishing climb can be divided into two distinct parts. The first section, only 1.5km long, averages 8.7%. The 2nd part is about 14km of climbing, most of it about 8% and with a few 10% ramps. There is a short false flat in the last couple of kilometres before a final 800m of climbing which hits 9%. The finish line is at the top of that.
The first attack today manages to stick, unlike yesterday’s marathon early section. The break consists of: Sutherland Delgerbayar Bontenackels Schelling
The first two of these are strange inclusions as they are certainly not climbers, but the last two most certainly could try something on the climbs today. Santos chases down a couple of bridging attempts and eventually the four are guaranteed to be our only breakaway riders.
The first mountain sprint looms and it is Schelling who takes the points here, ahead of Bontenackels and Sutherland. Their lead over the peloton is out to 2’55”.
Chicchi falls on this first descent. Several of his teammates go back to help him but we will have to wait until the next sprint stage to see if yesterday’s third place finisher is injured at all.
Bontenackels takes the first sprint bonuses and perhaps spurred on by this success he also takes the second mountain prime. Schelling is second here and Sutherland is third. Now the gap is out to 7’04” with the peloton still tapping out an easy rhythm.
The gap goes out to a maximum of 8 minutes before it starts to be slowly eaten into by the peloton. Schelling takes the third climb ahead of Bontenackels with Sutherland once again in third. Delgerbayar is starting to struggle a bit at the back of this group and may be ruing his choice of entering the break.
He isn’t the only one suffering, however, as Camier starts to up the pace in the bunch. 15 riders drop from the group, none of them GC riders, mostly sprinters and rouleurs. This will no doubt be a painful afternoon of riding for them.
Now we get a real indication of which teams are looking to do something today. On the third last time up this initial climb Loosli and Salgueiro are working with a whole host of Bouygues riders behind them. Another 4 riders are dropped and a lot more are looking dangerously close to slipping off at the back.
On to the second last circuit. The break are under 5 minutes ahead, and with 62km of incredibly tough terrain ahead things are looking dire for them. Even with this big pace, however, some riders are willing to give it a go. The first is Jairo Agudelo (20th, +42”). Stetina (28th, +49”) jumps after him but can’t quite reach his wheel.
Following after him we get a whole host of other riders: Hesjedal (17th, +38”) Nicacio (21st, +43”) Ghisalberti (29th, +49”) Briceno (49th, +56”) Eltink (37th, +53”)
Stetina joins these riders too to form a group of 6 behind Agudelo. It is great to see a lot of second tier favourites really looking to ignite this race. Most of them also come from teams who could do with a big points haul here, so looking to make the race tougher could work in their favour. Not only that, but all of them are at least moderately good climbers, so this could be an interesting move.
We hit the final mountain prime, on the second last circuit. Schelling again takes the points with Bontenackels and Sutherland taking the minor places. Delgerbayar is finally dropped for good from here and he will just drift back to join the bunch.
Tinkoff have joined the pursuit, ready to defend the leader’s jersey. As we cross the summit, this is a good opportunity to look at time gaps:
3'17"
41"
27"
4'25"
Break (3)
--->
Agudelo
--->
Chasers (6)
--->
P (121)
Indeed things close down even more as we hit the final summit before the main climb of the day:
28"
20"
1'44"
2'32"
Break (3)
--->
Agudelo
--->
Chasers (6)
--->
P (116)
The chase group of 6 finally catch Agudelo on the descent down to Cypress Mountain. They have a really nice gap on the peloton, which is starting to look potentially dangerous.
Bontenackels takes the final sprint point with 25km to go and with a gap of only 41” that is likely to be the last thing our break will be capable of doing before they are caught. Indeed just as the final climb starts they are swallowed up by the 7 riders who had been chasing them. The first part of the climb looms above them.
This first part of the climb is only 1.5km long but it averages 8.7% and thus will really help to sort the wheat from the chaff. The bulk of the climb only gets tougher, however. There is a short false flat where some riders might be able to recover a bit, but other than that this is brutal almost the entire way to the top.
As if he is trying to prove that he is tougher than the mountain Ghisalberti launches an attack within the first 500 metres. Stetina and Hesjedal follow him and they get a small gap.
And now the peloton roll power onto the climb and, not content to wait until later, none other than Taaramae launches his attack! Things are kicking off already here!
He is followed by Pozzovivo, Kritskiy and Popovych and they manage to pull out a gap on the bunch very quickly as the only teams who were pacing are all represented here. It is hard to believe that with this much climbing already left we now have the 4 of the biggest favourites in a group together.
Gadret is the first to set off in pursuit on his own. Then a whole series of riders break out of the pack on their own or in pairs as the false flat allows for riders to move up the bunch. The attackers are: Devolder and Abal together Kiserlovski on his own Keizer and Caruso together Plaza on his own Lovkvist on his own Alarcon and Krasnoperov together
As the second part of the climb starts we get a good chance to see how things are coming together. The 3 leaders have 16” on the other 4 breakaway riders. Another 52” back are the group with Kritskiy and the former breakaway riders, who were dropped.
Another 54” back is Gadret. He is 20” ahead of Kiserlovski, Devolder and Abal, who have formed up as a trio.
Keizer and Caruso had attacked together and they were joined by Plaza. They are 54” behind the group of Abal. This is 2’10” back on Kritskiy and co.
Lovkvist is on his own 18” behind these riders.
And another 22” behind is Krasnoperov who is leading Alarcon. Alarcon was poorly positioned when the attacks started and took quite a while to work his way up the bunch.
With 11km to go and the gradient at 7.5% Taaramae launches another attack, and this time only Popovych follows him.
These two get up to the four chasers and soon after Kritskiy, who clearly wasn’t panicking, drags himself and Pozzovivo up too. The injection of pace which these four cause also mean that the three riders who had attacked earlier are now caught. This gives us a lead group of 11.
There is something of a regroupment behind this as Lovkvist catches Keizer, Caruso and Plaza. Alarcon also forces his way up to here, dropping Krasnoperov in the process.
Currently the race looks like this:
1'45"
1'03"
Leaders
--->
Gr. Abal
--->
Gr. Alarcon
Up front a handful of riders try to get away: Hesjedal Briceno Stetina Ghisalberti
Clearly they are hoping the big names will just sit and look at each other, allowing them to take the stage. However Popovych doesn’t want to let anything go so he sets a strong enough pace that they can’t get away. It is interesting that he chose to run down Hesjedal here – perhaps a sign of some friction in the team?
With 7.9km of climbing still to go Popovych decides to lay down a tough tempo.
His pace is enough to get rid of four riders: Ghisalberti Nicacio Eltink Agudelo
Even with the pace high two riders are willing to give an attack a try – Pozzovivo and Taaramae!
Popovych just inches the pace up again and drags them back in. But that doesn’t discourage them as the same two try again as the gradient hits 9%. This is the last long stretch (about 2.5km) before the false flat which takes us to the final rise to the line.
Hesjedal and Briceno start to drift off the back but Stetina is holding on. What a ride from the young American!
More importantly, though, a gap starts to form as the two attackers go past the Devil himself - Didi. Popovych must have dug too deep to stop the first of these attacks and Kritskiy doesn’t look as strong as he usually does!
Stetina finally has to let go but will try to hold on for fifth today. But he isn’t the only one slipping backwards as Popovych starts to lose the wheel of Kritskiy too...
Meanwhile, behind this crucial action the group of Abal, Kiserlovski and Devolder join up with Gadret with four of the riders who had been dropped from the lead group: Ghisalberti Nicacio Eltink Agudelo
These 8 are a fair way back but will still be fighting for a strong GC place. Alarcon is fighting up as well and Lovkvist is trying to hold on to him.
Popovych is watching the three leaders disappear ahead of him. Kritskiy is just riding within his abilities and is almost back on to the leaders, who are still trying to put him into trouble again.
And with 3km remaining Kritskiy gets back to the two leaders. The false flat is about to begin, so he might have saved his jersey here, unless something can happen on the short finishing ramp.
And none of the front three want to lead this out for the others so they start playing games. This allows Popovych to come back and now we have 4 leaders. Popovych hits the front straight away, clearly just determined to avoid losing time on this final ramp.
The group which is a bit behind on the road start to attack each other and they split up. With 1km to go the situation is this:
56"
12"
24"
Popovych
--->
Stetina
--->
Briceno
--->
Alarcon
Taaramae
Abal
Hesjedal
Pozzovivo
Gadret
Kiserlovski
Kritskiy
Devolder
Eltink
Nicacio
Popovych leads out the sprint, with Kritskiy on the back. But Kritskiy was clearly just holding something back. He has a devastating kick and he uses it now!
And the others latch onto his wheel but Kritskiy is moving too fast.
And Kritskiy shows some real maturity today as he takes the victory. He just used up the minimum energy necessary to hold on to the others and once it came down to a kick to the line Kritskiy was always going to win.
Taaramae comes in second ahead of Pozzovivo. Meanwhile Popovych in fourth will just be glad to not lose time today, knowing that he can make back more in the final TT, though he has one more summit finish before that.
Abal is flying behind these guys, but Stetina just manages to hold him off in order to take an incredible fifth. He certainly had one of the most impressive rides of anyone today. They are 1’12” behind the leaders.
Another 14” back is a fairly decent sized group of riders. Briceno takes 7th ,which is a fantastic effort. Devolder’s 8th place will really put him on track for the top 10 which his manager declared to be “impossible”. Gadret takes 9th today and could well take a shot at achieving his team’s top 10 goal. Eltink rounds out the top ten today.
Also in this group of riders who are 1’26” back from the stage winner is: Nicacio Alarcon Hesjedal Kiserlovski
Finishing 2’14” behind the leaders today, and presumably quite disappointed with their performances are Caruso and Lovkvist.
2’31” behind is a group containing Keizer, Plaza and Agudelo, which is a terrible effort from Plaza, who will now probably have to work for Nicacio. Finally, rounding out the top twenty 2’56” back is Ghisalberti. Every other rider in this race is almost 4 minutes behind him, meaning that the top 20 overall is almost completely decided.
Kritskiy slightly extends his lead today thanks to bonus seconds, though he was put into difficulty so there is still the possibility that on the next mountain stage he will lose some time. The riders who will be in the top 4 look pretty set today. The points jersey also obviously stays with Kritskiy. Taaramae was one of the strongest climbers today and gets to keep the mountain jersey, which looks pretty certain to go to one of the GC riders. Looking at the team rankings, two of the three teams who had riders in the top twenty were Bintang and Repsol and they seem to be the two teams who will be battling it out for this competition unless one of hte GC teams really destroy the race next mountain stage. Finally, despite being really poorly placed in the peloton Alarcon takes the young rider jersey. He may be hoping to move into 5th on GC after the next mountain stage.
