Although the riders have to pass a hilly circuit several times, a sprint finish is expected. The hills aren`t that hard and the sprinter teams surely want to use the few chances they get here.
Some sprinters already left this race but with Maksimov, Park or Manan some fast men are still there, but all of them are not really good climbers and might struggle on the small hills.
And not to forget the better "climbers" with good sprint skills like Arashiro, Abdallah or Sonnery, who might be favored today.
Agostini, Dupont and Khalmuratov form the early breakaway group.
All 3 of them already lost lots of time yesterday and are no big danger.
Bercz attacks some time later and tries to join them. But at first he needs to work a lot as teh group already has a nice advance.
Agostini takes the first KoM ahead of Dupont and Khalmuratov. (Unfortunately there is a tunnel directly behind so no good camera angles of the KoM)
Vespa, Meiji and Proximus are doing most work here. No question that the fans want to see Arashiro winning today, so the Japanese team is doing a lot.
After 20km solo ride Bercz finally joins the group. The 4 riders will have 3 more KoM sprints, which will make it an interesting battle for sure.
Bad news for Appleby. Froome`s best helper crashes on the wet roads but luckily can continue the race.
Bercz immediately shows unknown climber skills and wins the 2nd KoM ahead of Agostini and Khalmuratov.
Meiji accelerates behind. Next to Suzuki also Doi is working hard now and is obviously risking a good overall to support his sprinter. good for the team that the team has another leader in Lloyd.
More riders down. Lots of small crashes so far but this one is another big crash. Bobridge falls and Gil can`t avoid to ride into him. Surely not his race.
Thanks to a strong team performance Bobridge is back in the peloton.
Koldo Gil however seems to be badly injured as he is already 4min behind riding solo in the last place.
Bercz taking also the 3rd KoM ahead of Dupont and Khalmuratov while the Oz rider gets the 4th ahead of Agostini and Bercz this time.
A nice sharing of all points so far. In the end none of these 4 is able to beat the 14 points and in the end Vorganov will get the jersey by Arashiro. Same fair sharing by the officials obviously.
With just 9km to go the group is almost caught. But one rider still wants to surprise the sprinters. Veloso is attacking on the last hill. He already lost time yesterday and is at least no danger in the overall.
And another crash. Some helpers fall on the asphalt. The worst was Hasta, who has to abandon the race badly injured.
With 5km to go there is still a gap to Veloso. Suzuki should definitely keep the high pace instead of starting to prepare a sprint train for Arashiro. Otherwise they won`t bring the Spaniard back after all the hard work.
Also Khalmuratov is still a bit ahead as he followed the Veloso for a short time.
Not all sprinters are been seen in the first rows. Surely the KoM shirt of Arashiro can be identified. Also a strong Fothen is on the left side. Capecci can be seen but already being struggling a bit as also the Jayco duo Sonnery and Moreno.
Nevertheless Veloso seems to be too far away.
Either he just had a very bad day yesterday or he was just bluffing with the goal to get a stage win in Japan instead of going for a top15 overall.
Surely his team manager can`t be unhappy with this tactic as he still hast 3 other riders in the fight for a top10.
Bad tactic on the other side by Meiji, who controlled the whole race just to lose the stage in the final 10km. Arashiro was surely the strongest today sprinting on the 2nd ahead of surprising De la Fuente, who takes some more seconds in the fight for the overall win. Fothen sprints on a strong 4th with Capecchi being 6th. Obviously he was also stronger than expected while Sonnery`s 15th is a bit disappointing on such a stage.
