Yesterdays stage was already hilly enough to get rid of the sprinters. Todays hills are not as steep but longer and so it looks for another stage without sprint finish. Perfect stage for someone like Wegmann actually who must be named as top favourite today.


Again a big group has formed. 13 riders including some big names.
Belkov
Terpstra
Veikkanen
Vantomme, Koep
Eichler
Aramendia
Drujon
Bonnet, Borrajo
Minard
Silva
Westra
Quite interesting that all 5 teams that didthe pace yesterday are in the break today. So not many teams left to do the pace in the peloton.



Belkov wins the first of four KoM ahead of Veikkanen and Eichler. It might already have been the steepest climb today as the other 3 are more coming from the length.



The climb was already hard enough to let 3 riders drop. Westra, Vantomme and Borrajo can follow. They still fight to come back. Mainly Westra obviously as the other 2 have another guy in front.



Cyclevox, Venchi and WWE are doing the pace behind. All 3 teams have no team in the group and are forced to do something if they want to have any influence on this stage.
93km and 5'30 for them.



Minard takes the 2nd KoM ahead of Terpstra and Koep and as you can see more sprinter terrain here.



Bad luck for Belkov. He might have been one of the strongest allrounders in the break but now crashing and even falling behind the Westra group.



77km and still 6'29.
Mainly Venchi is doing the work now for race leader Bodnar with Cyclevox supporting. Nothing to see of WWE now.



Strong ride by Belkov. After resting with the dropped 3 for some kilometers he rode the rest solo and is back in the front group.



And it was luck for the others as well. Vantomme and Borrajo took profit from Belkov`s work and come back. Only Westra can`t join. He seems to be totally empty.



Eichler, Veikkanen, Belkov at the 3rd KoM. Can anyone bring the jersey in danger today? At the moment it`s still race leader Bodnar having it ahead of Kwiatowski, who wears it today.



Now only Venchi with 4 riders at the front. No Cyclevox. And we still count almost 4min with 37km to go. Did the other teams already gave up?



Here we see the reason. Cyclevox planned an attack by Mandri with exactly 30km to go.



This brings Vespa on the plan. They take over from Venchi and chase Mandri and the breakaway now.
But 10km later the gap to the breakaway is still the same than before and obviously we will see another win by them.



At least Mandri is caught again. No chance for the Estonian.
Also Westra is just a few seconds ahead now.



15km left and still 2'30. Some favourites realize that the peloton is not going fast enough and attack.
We see Kessler and Roy doing so.



Belkov takes the last KoM and has 13 points now. This is still 3 less than Bodnar and so not enough. Veikkanen and Terpstra coming next.



Unlucky moment for Vantomme and Borrajo. Just 200m to the KoM they dropped again. Both of them would have had great chances to win today as it`s only going downhill from here.



9km left and the next attack. Lloret tries to close the gap to the earlier attacking duo. But the gap to the breakaway is not really becoming any smaller.



Double attack by Trilux. Kessler, Roy and Lloret reached Vantomme and Borrajo, but Kessler is now attacking from this group while Wegmann attacks from the peloton 20s behind. But with 6km left the breakaway still has a 1'22 gap to Kessler.



Definitely a breakaway win. But who of these 10 riders?
Bonnet and Drujon might be the fastest but they are quite far behind. Minard is also very fast and in 2nd position just behind Eichler. So much better positioned but maybe even too far in front.



Kessler, Wegmann, Lloret, Roy, Vantomme and Borrajo still have some seconds to the peloton.



With 1,2km Minard is coming around Eichler, who has zero chances today. Also Terpstra is coming from behind.



Minard still leading with Veikkanen just behind. Drujon and Bonnet coming fast now on the left lane.



But too late. Minard with an excellent sprint wins the 4th stage in Germany. So the 3rd win by a German team so far. Bonnet and Drujon complete the podium.



No chance for the Wegmann group. In the sprint they are caught by the peloton.



1'49 after the breakaway Bazayev leads the peloton over the line. So again a breakaway is allowed to gain time on the pre race favourites.
At least Bodnar will keep the lead. Minard climbs to 8th overall and none of the actual race favourites is within the top20. Quite disappointing for them so far but it gives chances to their helpers to shine here.


Result

1	Sébastien Minard	Team Puma - SAP	3h48'37
2	William Bonnet	UniCredit	s.t.
3	Mathieu Drujon	Focused Cycling	s.t.
4	Maxim Belkov	T.CS Bank - OJSC	s.t.
5	Niki Terpstra	Pokerstars.com	s.t.
6	Markus Eichler	Team Trilux - Falke	s.t.
7	Jussi Veikkanen	VolksWagen - Siemens	s.t.
8	Thomas Koep	Team Rothaus - Aegon	s.t.
9	Javier Aramendía	Team Bianchi	s.t.
10	Bruno Silva	Cerne	s.t.
11	Assan Bazajev	Pirelli - Alfa Romeo	+ 1'49
12	Sergei Kolesnikov	T.CS Bank - OJSC	s.t.
13	Maxime Vantomme	Team Rothaus - Aegon	s.t.
14	Alexander Gottfried	Team WWE	s.t.
15	Alejandro Borrajo	UniCredit	s.t.
16	Nikias Arndt	Vespa - Aprilia - De Rosa	s.t.
17	Chris Anker Sørensen	Team WWE	s.t.
18	Fabian Wegmann	Team Trilux - Falke	s.t.
19	Rob Ruijgh	Team Rothaus - Aegon	s.t.
20	Christophe Kern	Pokerstars.com	s.t.

Overall

1	Maciej Bodnar	Team Venchi ProCycling	11h58'43
2	Tom Dumoulin	Team Puma - SAP	+ 9
3	Cédric Pineau	Focused Cycling	s.t.
4	Tosh Van der Sande	UniCredit	+ 10
5	Bob Jungels	Focused Cycling	+ 13
6	Michał Kwiatkowski	Vespa - Aprilia - De Rosa	+ 15
7	Ivan Santaromita	Pirelli - Alfa Romeo	+ 20
8	Sébastien Minard	Team Puma - SAP	+ 25
9	Javier Aramendía	Team Bianchi	s.t.
10	Bram Tankink	Team WWE	+ 26
11	André Mourato	Cerne	s.t.
12	Marco Alexandre Ferreira Cunha	Cerne	+ 28
13	Oscar Freire	Koppert Cycling Team	+ 32
14	Niki Terpstra	Pokerstars.com	+ 35
15	Markus Eichler	Team Trilux - Falke	+ 41
16	Thomas Koep	Team Rothaus - Aegon	+ 43
17	Alex Coutts	Cyclevox	+ 1'08
18	Mathieu La Lavandier	Team Bpost	+ 1'17
19	William Bonnet	UniCredit	+ 1'29
20	Jussi Veikkanen	VolksWagen - Siemens	+ 1'53

P:

1	William Bonnet	UniCredit	36
2	Tosh Van der Sande	UniCredit	28
3	Lars Boom	Team Rothaus - Aegon	27
4	Sébastien Minard	Team Puma - SAP	27
5	Cédric Pineau	Focused Cycling	25
6	Gerald Ciolek	Team Bianchi	25
7	Mathieu Drujon	Focused Cycling	25
8	André Mourato	Cerne	20
9	Rick Flens	Koppert Cycling Team	20
10	Marco Guillén	Pokerstars.com	20

KoM:

1	Maciej Bodnar	Team Venchi ProCycling	16
2	Michał Kwiatkowski	Vespa - Aprilia - De Rosa	16
3	Maxim Belkov	T.CS Bank - OJSC	13
4	Bram Tankink	Team WWE	12
5	Jussi Veikkanen	VolksWagen - Siemens	11
6	Ivan Santaromita	Pirelli - Alfa Romeo	10
7	Markus Eichler	Team Trilux - Falke	7
8	Cédric Pineau	Focused Cycling	6
9	Tosh Van der Sande	UniCredit	5
10	Artem Ovechkin	T.CS Bank - OJSC	5

U25:

1	Tom Dumoulin	Team Puma - SAP	11h58'52 (1)
2	Tosh Van der Sande	UniCredit	+ 1 (2)
3	Bob Jungels	Focused Cycling	+ 4 (3)
4	Michał Kwiatkowski	Vespa - Aprilia - De Rosa	+ 6 (4)
5	André Mourato	Cerne	+ 17 (5)
6	Marco Alexandre Ferreira Cunha	Cerne	+ 19 (6)
7	Thomas Koep	Team Rothaus - Aegon	+ 34 (7)
8	Mathieu La Lavandier	Team Bpost	+ 1'08 (8)
9	Artem Ovechkin	T.CS Bank - OJSC	+ 2'09 (9)
10	David Veilleux	Team WWE	+ 2'13 (10)

Team:

1	Focused Cycling	35h57'12 (1)
2	Cerne	+ 1'39 (2)
3	Team Puma - SAP	+ 2'06 (3)
4	UniCredit	+ 2'08 (4)
5	Team Venchi ProCycling	+ 3'44 (5)
6	Vespa - Aprilia - De Rosa	+ 4'07 (6)
7	Team Bianchi	+ 4'23 (7)
8	Pokerstars.com	+ 4'24 (8)
9	Team Rothaus - Aegon	+ 4'24 (9)
10	Team WWE	+ 4'24 (10)
11	Team Trilux - Falke	+ 4'25 (11)
12	T.CS Bank - OJSC	+ 4'25 (12)
13	Cyclevox	+ 5'00 (13)
14	Pirelli - Alfa Romeo	+ 5'21 (14)
15	Team Bpost	+ 6'06 (15)
16	VolksWagen - Siemens	+ 8'08 (16)
17	Koppert Cycling Team	+ 10'06 (17)