A pure sprinter stage today. No real hill and only 142km lenght.
Ciolek won the only sprint so far but with Vantomme, Bazayev or Drujon more great sprinters at the start.


Roy within the first attacking wave. The French is one of the best puncheurs here and with just +2'24 still a big danger as he is also expected to perform decent tomorrow.



But it took quite a while until the real group was formed then. Still Roy made the jump.
Roy
Müller
McLay
Ockeloen
Van Den Eynde
Rast



Venchi seems to be happy with the group and controlls the peloton.



Roy won the first sprint, that was not covered by the media. Rast and Ovechkin followed next.



Maybe today is the day for Vantomme? At least his Rothaus squad is doing the main part of the pace working with 95km left and a gap of 7min.



Roy also wins the 2nd sprint ahead of Ovechkin and Rast. The French is fighting for every second he can get to climb in the rankings.



Also Bianchi is working hard now. Next to Vantomme, Ciolek might be the fastest sprinter and seeing this as his home race he might be motivated a lot. 55km and the gap is down to 4'16.



Again the three same riders but this time Ovechkin ahead of Roy and Rast.



The group is fighting hard. So they still have a 2min gap with 25km to go although the pace making teams already sent their last helpers to the front.



Also Rast takes one sprint with Roy and Ovechkin following.



As last rider McLay is caught with 7,5km to go. Time for the final sprint preparations.



Bianchi and Rothaus is at teh front now next to the race leader Bodnar.
Ciolek and Vantomme both well placed.
But Drujon, Vingerling, Wegmann, Dekkers and Bazayev are all just behind.



And with ~6km to go we see how fast the wind is today. With the sprinter teams pushing hard now many riders lose contact due to a split.
Within them obviously Bosisio and Ratiy.



Baumann in the lead, Vantomme with a small gap behind. But it`s still 3km to go. On the left the Bianchi guys with all other sprinters being positioned pretty well.



Instead of making a two men train, Vantomme is immediately passing Baumann and goes into the wind with 2,2km. That`s a pretty early move. Perfect leadout for Drujon, Vingerling and Wegmann of course, who are just behind.



And Wegmann is coming first overtaking the Belgium. Ciolek still not really pushing his sprint on the left side of the road.



Wegmann has a good gap already with Drujon coming now and also Ciolek started his sprint.



Was Ciolek`s move too late?
Normally he sprinted perfectly but due to Vantomme`s early sprint he missed the right moment probably.



Indeed Wegmann surprisingly wins this pure sprinter stage. We knew he was a good sprinter and riding in Germany sure helps him, but winning against these sprinter? Not expected.
Ciolek came close and finishes 2nd with Minard coming out of nowhere sprinting on the 3rd. Vantomme as 6th with another really disappointing result.
In other news Bosisio and Ratiy both lose 3'47 today. Horrible race for the Ukrainian.

It is still very exciting. Tomorrow`s queen`s stage will show how many of the former breakaways will stay ahead the climbers and puncheurs, who are favoured on tomorrows uphill finish.


Result

1	Fabian Wegmann	Team Trilux - Falke	3h02'38
2	Gerald Ciolek	Team Bianchi	s.t.
3	Sébastien Minard	Team Puma - SAP	s.t.
4	Assan Bazajev	Pirelli - Alfa Romeo	s.t.
5	Mathieu Drujon	Focused Cycling	s.t.
6	Maxime Vantomme	Team Rothaus - Aegon	s.t.
7	Michael Vingerling	Team WWE	s.t.
8	John Degenkolb	Pokerstars.com	s.t.
9	Sergei Kolesnikov	T.CS Bank - OJSC	s.t.
10	Eric Baumann	Team Rothaus - Aegon	s.t.
11	Hans Dekkers	Koppert Cycling Team	s.t.
12	Geoffroy Lequatre	Team Bianchi	s.t.
13	Maciej Bodnar	Team Venchi ProCycling	s.t.
14	Niki Terpstra	Pokerstars.com	s.t.
15	William Bonnet	UniCredit	s.t.
16	Markus Eichler	Team Trilux - Falke	s.t.
17	Manuel Lloret	Team Bianchi	s.t.
18	Matthias Kessler	Team Trilux - Falke	s.t.
19	Jonathon Thire	Team Puma - SAP	s.t.
20	Cédric Pineau	Focused Cycling	s.t.

Overall

1	Maciej Bodnar	Team Venchi ProCycling	15h01'21
2	Cédric Pineau	Focused Cycling	+ 9
3	Tom Dumoulin	Team Puma - SAP	s.t.
4	Tosh Van der Sande	UniCredit	+ 10
5	Bob Jungels	Focused Cycling	+ 13
6	Michał Kwiatkowski	Vespa - Aprilia - De Rosa	+ 15
7	Sébastien Minard	Team Puma - SAP	+ 17
8	Ivan Santaromita	Pirelli - Alfa Romeo	+ 20
9	Javier Aramendía	Team Bianchi	+ 25
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	Gerald Ciolek	Team Bianchi	45
2	Sébastien Minard	Team Puma - SAP	43
3	Fabian Wegmann	Team Trilux - Falke	41
4	William Bonnet	UniCredit	37
5	Mathieu Drujon	Focused Cycling	37
6	Tosh Van der Sande	UniCredit	28
7	Lars Boom	Team Rothaus - Aegon	27
8	Cédric Pineau	Focused Cycling	25
9	Maxime Vantomme	Team Rothaus - Aegon	23
10	Michael Vingerling	Team WWE	21

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	Sébastien Minard	Team Puma - SAP	5

U25:

1	Tom Dumoulin	Team Puma - SAP	15h01'30 (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	+ 1'55 (9)
10	David Veilleux	Team WWE	+ 2'13 (10)

Team:

1	Focused Cycling	45h05'06 (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	Team Rothaus - Aegon	+ 4'24 (8)
9	Pokerstars.com	+ 4'24 (9)
10	Team WWE	+ 4'24 (10)
11	T.CS Bank - OJSC	+ 4'25 (11)
12	Team Trilux - Falke	+ 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)