Alinejad growing in the race, a win please

JvR bit more disappointing this time, expecting him to plummet in the GC tomorrow, but no worries.

Just too slow really. He was in the track behind Markus and was never really close to getting that gap small enough to actually get blocked

Again some points from Arndt who is solid sprinting here but we need more brekaway action and our win. At least with Walker losing time again today, he might get into breaks more easy now.

Hutarovich is doing an absolutely superb job so far, Markus basically just had to finish it off again.
3 sprint wins out of 3 sprints, I really can't complain so far
Thanks for the good pace Atlantius.

Well something has to happen up Genting else this has been a waste of time for Caja. Great pace atlantius - brilliant job

conformed


hé I would take offense to that, if it wasn't Voltali the sprinter



unless I'm mistaken Shaqif has something like 77 TT. he had something along that line in the Vuelta

I'm getting seriously nervous about those Langkawi results. It's not only that Naveed just never even gets on the podium, but that's the third win for AG2R already - from Markus! They even score big when not bringing Betancur, which means it's gonna be hard to beat them in relegation battle.

But taking into account that we will promote for sure (for obvious reasons, everybody just likes Communists, right?), that's just bad news for FDJ, Caja and all the others

FDJ is feeling pretty good after holding 2nd place in the last rankings update. Since then we've only continued our good form. It's gonna be at least a double French rise back to the WT this year.

Time for the big names to do something.


Sarmiento is first over the first intermediate sprint followed by Lemoine and Hatanaka with the peloton 1'44 behind.

60 km and 3'40
50 km and 3'14
40 km and 2'58

30 km and 2'09
The usual teams have taken over the chase.

With just 23 km of climbing left the front trio has a gap of 1'32

Sarmiento wisely decides to ditch the other two.

Several smaller names including J.Janse van Rensburg tries to get away but the first big name to make a move is Gadret with 18 km to go.

Johnson sets a hard pace in the peloton with Verdugo and Clarke right behind him.
About time we got to see Orica doing a bit of work in this race…

He pulls a hole in the peloton with Alarcon and Chavez just getting with the other three.

With 14,5 km to go they catch up with Gadret and the other breakers except Sarmiento.

Verdugo keeps the pace high in spite of having a team mate alone out in front. They only have about a minutes gap on the GC top 3.

13 km to go and Lequatre is cracking while De Maar just hangs on to the main group.

The situation when Sarmiento has 9 km to the top:
That puts Damuseau in the GC lead for now.

Llanet puts in a strong effort trying to keep his teammate on top of the GC, Less than a minute to the favourite group in between.

6,5 km to the top and it looks like Damuseau have found his limit.

Llanet drops back to help him, which creates a gap behind Brajkovic.
Updated times:


Johnson is putting down the hammer. Only Alarcon and Gadret have what it takes to even try following him.

Gadret cracks while Johnson and Alarcon bridges the gap to Sarmiento, who looks like he is cooked.

Johnson is without a doubt the strongest today.


Caja Rural completes the podium with Verdugo on 6th as well. An impressive ride by the Basque-based team.

Balloni gets the final spot in the top 10

Llanet leads group Damuseau over the finish line. Great help but will it be enough to save the jersey?

1	Diego Johnson	Orica - GreenEdge	3h08'12
2	Jose Alarcon	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 47
3	Cayetano Sarmiento	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 1'14
4	John Gadret	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 1'28
5	Esteban Chaves	Colombia	+ 2'13
6	Gorka Verdugo	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	s.t.
7	Cadel Evans	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 2'35
8	Janez Brajkovi�	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
9	Simon Clarke	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 2'56
10	Alfredo Balloni	Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox	+ 3'16

1	Diego Johnson	Orica - GreenEdge	16h40'27
2	Thomas Damuseau	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	+ 42
3	Jose Alarcon	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 55
4	John Gadret	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 1'48
5	Gorka Verdugo	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 2'33
6	Esteban Chaves	Colombia	s.t.
7	Cadel Evans	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 2'55
8	Janez Brajkovi�	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
9	Simon Clarke	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 3'16
10	Alfredo Balloni	Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox	+ 3'36

1	Barry Markus	AG2R La Mondiale	0	75
2	Fabian Brookes	Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox	0	56
3	Leigh Howard	Orica - GreenEdge	0	48
4	Mario Guido	Colombia	0	46
5	Diego Johnson	Orica - GreenEdge	25	39

1	Geoffroy Lequatre	Bretagne - Séché Environnement	0	36
2	Diego Johnson	Orica - GreenEdge	20	20
3	Gaël Malacarne	Bretagne - Séché Environnement	0	16
4	John Murphy	UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team	0	16
5	Jimmy Engoulvent	Sojasun	0	16

1	Diego Johnson	Orica - GreenEdge	16h40'27 (1)
2	Thomas Damuseau	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	+ 42 (2)
3	Jose Alarcon	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 55 (3)
4	Esteban Chaves	Colombia	+ 2'33 (4)
5	Alfredo Balloni	Bardiani Valvole - CSF Inox	+ 3'36 (5)

1	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	50h06'35 (1)
2	Orica - GreenEdge	+ 1'17 (2)
3	Astana Pro Team	+ 6'23 (3)
4	CCC Polsat - Polkowice	+ 11'52 (4)
5	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 13'04 (5)

It's a shame the climb was just too long for Damuseau but Diego and Orica finally showed their quality.

I just lost everything at that stage and Llanet did a good job, but so many points got lost there

Woohoo!! That's for all the pre-season doubters

Orica claiming an easy win, it will be a lot of points for them with the huge lack of WT teams.

Solid by Boswell. Caja Rural with some great depth on that stage.

You do sit on 2nd in the GC thanks to a breakaway-bug. Exactly the same spot as you had before the stage, only now behind a new rider one might add...

2nd in the GC is a pretty good result for you here IMO. Of course he still has to avoid crashes and all of course, but other than that it's hard to see anything affecting the GC in the remaining stages.

Doesn't take the fact that the win was so close and I'm still getting points from here, but when 150 points were lost for a team, which is predicted to finish last and om the other hand having 4 second places in a season, then this is a bigger loss than you think

What do you mean by that? Winning Langkawi in a weak field with your top GC rider doesn't indicate your top 10 predicted finish. Nothing personal but I think your squad has a lot more to prove before the doubters eat their words.

Oh and for those wondering about the rankings, I'll post another when San Luis and Algarve finish

Guess we have to wait a month then

That stage went as expected. Bit disappointed the team didn't join the break, but the result is not too bad.