We have reached the mountain and Rui Costa is in the lead before todays stage.
But will he be able to defend it or are other climbers too strong for him like Kritskiy, Plaza, Karpets/Iglinski, Caruso, Nazaret or Suaza to name just a few.
Same situation for Reus or Konovalovas, who can only reach a good GC when fighting hugely on the two mountain climbs.
4 riders in the breakway once more. Villella, a young Italian puncheur talent, Smirnovs, the most dangerous in here with less than a minute back, Paulus, Rohregger`s teammate and eventually a big help later on and Locatelli, to isolate his leader Suaza even a bit more. On the fair side, he is the only one with a few mountain points and might go for the jersey.
Tinkoff doing the work was expected. CSC for race leader Costa as well.
Mobil is a little surprise but everyone, who has seen their performance so far knows, that they are riding very agressive with lots of attacks.
So the most surprising must be Team UPC here. Surely they want to calm down things a bit so that Reus can go into the final climb with all his energy.
First KoM and Locatelli comes over first but just by a tiny bit as Paulus almost overtook him in front of the line as the Italian struggled on the last centimeters. Smirnovs as 3rd completes the points here.
75km left and a gap of 5'30. It`s already 1min down the maximum on top of the climb. And you can see why:
Tinkoff and Prio Porto with a few helpers each have highered the pace.
So far it was a great race for Prio with 2 wins by Ventoso and Plaza and also 2 2nd placed by those two. And todays stage could add another win or 2nd obviously as Plaza belongs to the very best stage racers here.
Same goes obviously to Tinkoff as Kritskiy already delivered them a first win and is the top favourite for the GC.
2nd KoM and this time Paulus overtook Locatelli early enough to win it.
Smirnovs again in 3rd.
So both collected 9 points today, while Smirnovs only got 3 in total. Adding Locatelli`s already collected 3 points this will move him up to the provisional 4th behind the still sharing Top3 Van Baarle, Merino Criado and Selig.
But as we have a mountain top finish, we might see a total change as there are still 16 points to give.
Easy play at the sprint. As only Smirnovs is interested no other rider is challenging him and he takes those 6 bonus seconds. Locatelli and Paulus as next and Villella still without any reward today.
Still 55km to go but some riders already start to become ambitious.
It`s Chavanel, 16th in the GC. The French surely is not the best climber and so he tries it with an early attack and you can already see some riders behind that want to join him.
More 2nd tier climbers even though we have a strong Adira duo with Cabreira and Cardoso.
Also in there Galviz and Boily.
At the same time Osella crashes...bad news for Cisco obviously as he could have delivered a decent GC but more important was Caruso`s best support here and now it will be hard to come back due to the high pace.
At least he doesn`t look too injured except for a few bruises.
43km and the 5 attackers join the early breakaway and already got a gap of 2'30, while Osella is about the same time behind the peloton.
Still a long way to go for those 9 but at the moment they work together very well even though Adira has a numerous advantage here.
They reach the sprint, which has become more interesting now obviously. Chavanel ahead of Boily and Cardoso in the end.
Cabreira might have been the better option but as he only came in 5th, it was a good move by Cardoso to get the last seconds.
6 Tinkoff riders now followed by a few Prio and CSC riders. 30km left and a gap of almost 3min. So it became a bit dangerous now, which led to this acceleration.
Well. This might lead to another acceleration. 22km and a great attack by Iglinski. The Kazakh is a top5 stage racer here and a huge danger obviously.
He is immediately followed by Caruso and Nazaret.
But as Prio Porto joined Tinkoff at the front with 3 men, the trio was caught soon afterwards.
Who did not expect this:
15km to go and the Mobil duo attacks. Silva/Vrecer both are within a dangerous time range and shouldn`t be ignored.
Always fun to see those CT riders being very motivated in the big races. This invitation clearly paid off already.
But as Iglinski and Caruso weren`t allowed to attack, it`s their two teams now to higher the pace. The climb is just ahead and so it was a smart move by those two teams to come to the front as Iglinski, Karpets and Caruso are all in the top5 positions now.
Also Rohregger, Kritskiy and Costa are well placed.
Next sprint and again Chavanel proves to be the strongest. Behind him Cabreira with nice bonus seconds ahead of Boily.
The peloton is 1'47 behind with the Mobil duo a few seconds further ahead. So it will be close in between those groups.
When the peloton passes this point we see that Iglinski and Plaza did attack and joined Vrecer, who is the remaining Mobil rider.
6,7km left for Villella, who did attack out of the group to lead the race solo now 20s ahead of the 8 rider group.
Another 47s later Plaza, Iglinski and Vrecer follow also 20s ahead of the peloton.
Weird tactic here. Even though Iglinski is in front, Huzarski and Ignatenko obviously work for Karpets in the peloton to close the gap. Iglinski just seems to take care of Plaza in that group.
The stronger climbers are found. It`s Cabreira and Galviz, who soon reach the 5km mark and are the last survivors of the attacks. Behind them a 91 rider peloton including the early attackers, mid attackers and also the Plaza group again.
He never stopps obviously. It`s Iglinski again with 3,5km to go. He obviously is not exhausting after the previous effort.
He soon reaches the remaining breakaway duo and also from behind we see Caruso following.
And look, who is still there in the first rows. The yellow jersey really gives him extra energy today as Costa is in a great position and also Reus and Konovalovas are not that much behind actually.
Actually he attacks now. Behind Costa it`s Rohregger, Plaza, Chavanel again and also Schrangl to support his leader.
Kritskiy apparently is waiting a bit longer, just like Karpets, who at least has a team mate ahead. Also Suaza, NAzaret and others are not reacting yet.
A bit more than 1km to go and Caruso attacks again with Iglinski following.
Cabreira and Galviz obviously have no energy left.
Last km reached and we have 3 riders with a good gap. The first two were obvious as Caruso and Iglinski did have a small gap. But Rohregger in 3rd is a bit of a surprise and still we don`t see Kritskiy being very active.
Finally. Suaza starts the sprint of the peloton and behind him there is Plaza, Kritskiy, Costa and all the others.
This is a great fight but the time gaps might be very small as Plaza is coming fast from behind and also Suaza, Kritskiy and Karpets are there slowly closing the gap to the trio ahead.
Quite early Caruso starts to celebrate while Plaza comes fast for another 2nd. Or can he even surprise the Italian and steal the win?
No. It`s Caruso`s big win but eventually he could have gotten a time gap when riding until the finish.
Plaza with the next 2nd for Prio Porto and more important more bonus seconds. Karpets as 3rd with a nice sprint here is able to beat his country man Kritskiy for the seconds.
Iglinski as 5th completes a good LukOil result ahead of a great riding Rohregger and Nazaret.
These 7 riders were counted the same time but then we have a small gap.
Huzarski as 8th! After all hte work he did today this is an awesome result. Suaza one of todays losers as he needed to gain time in the mountains. Instead he lost 25s here.
36s behind a bigger group and here we have the time trialist/puncheurs already. Costa, Reus, Konovalovas are all in here as also Ivars, Richardson, Cabreire, Vrecer, Silva or Chavanel.
So we again have a new race leader and it`s Plaza again. Kritskiy as 2nd ahead of todays winner Caruso. Karpets as 4th but then already Costa, who is just 28s down. Rohregger as 6th the best CT rider so far. But also Konovalovas and Reus are in a decent position as 13./14..
Osella came in as 72nd today and lost 4'53. So his GC chances are gone. But he can concentrate to support Caruso on the next, harder mountain stage even more. As shown today Caruso belongs to the strongest and might still have the GC win in his mind.
