The Tour will have its second uphill finish today. This time the final climb is much shorter but the terrain ahead of it is considerably more difficult. The hills riders and the uphill finishers should fight for the stage but no big differences are expected among the favorites for the GC of the Tour. Cameron Meyer should be good enough over the hills to defend his yellow jersey today.
Only 3 riders formed the break of the day: Jure Kocjan (Discovery), Enrico Gasparotto (Astana) and Daniel Martin (Ag2r). They made it to the intermediate sprint in Senlecques (77 kilometers to go) in that order and with a gap of 5' 50'' over the main bunch. The preparation for the sprint was the first time the peloton woke up in the day. Ben Swfit took the maximum points available ahead of Matthew Goss and Kenny van Hummel.
Vacansoleil and Euskaltel took the lead of the peloton when the hills started. They had reduced the gap to the break to 3' 15'' at the Cote de Mont Violette. At this point it looks like Enrico Gasparotto and Daniel Martin were going to fight for the mountain jersey among themselves, as they are already tied with Michael Rogers. On the back of the peloton a group of sprinters lost contact and with them is Joaquim Rodriguez, who seems to be suffering from his crash a couple of days ago.
There were quite a few attacks in the main bunch but only Cadel Evans could maintain a proper gap for a while. He reahed the Cote de Herquelinge (17 km to go) 35 seconds behind the front group, while the main bunch was losing 1' 20'' at that point. Daniel Martin took the provisional lead of the mountains classification at that climb.
Evans made it to the front group but the bunch was too strong in the last kilometers and they reeled them all back in. However, the attempts to win through a break did not stop there. Mikel Nieve attacked in the Cote du Mont Lambert (6 km to go) and had 10 seconds on Juanjo Cobo at the top and 25 seconds on the bunch. Quickstep and Vacansoleil are controlling the pace while Cameron Meyer is still at the front of the pack.
Mikel Nieve reached the 2 kilometers mark still with a gap of 15 seconds on a group of 60 riders. It is surprising what a big toll this stage is taking in many riders. However, Mikel Nieve still has to fight hard as the last kilometer uphill finish could be hard on him. Bauke Mollema, David Lopez, Jelle Vanendert and Matthias Frank are all showing their faces in the front of the chasing group.
The attacks from the group started already in the last 800 meters of the stage. Nieve is holding on to a gap of barely 8 seconds, it is going to be a close call for the stage. Behind him, Bauke Mollema is leading the way for the group ahead of Jelle Vanendert, Jakob Fuglsang and Laurens Ten Dam. The Belgian is looking to make it two wins in 4 days and where better for him than an uphill finish.
Bauke Mollema wins in Boulogne-sur-Mer! An amazing last climb by the Dutch, who showed that he is well prepared for the Tour de France. He finished ahead of Jelle Vanendert, Mikel Nieve and David Lopez. The four of them managed to open a gap of 17 seconds behind them, enough to put Mollema in the yellow jersey and Vanendert in the second place. It is difficult to say whether Mollema should have restrained himself from taking the yellow jersey ahead of 3 flat stages as that is going to put a lot of extra effort on his team.
A total of 40 riders were 17 seconds down on the stage, led by Hubert Dupont and Peter Weening. The gap was not huge, but it shows how weak or strong are the riders in this first week of the Tour. The secondary classifications also suffered some changes, as Jelle Vanendert took the lead of the points' jersey, Daniel Martin leads the mountains and Samuel Dumoulin is the best young rider.
The fifth stage is the first of three consecutive flat stages that will take the riders to the region of the Jura mountains. Today's stage has 4 fourth category climbs in the first part but when the race turns south towards Rouen the threat of the wind will be gone and the terrain will be very flat. A mass sprint is almost unavoidable, especially with the teams of the sprinters still strong.
The teams of the sprinters wouldn't let a big break go at the beginning of the stage and the break of the day ended up having 4 riders: Luca Paolini (Quickstep), Jan Barta (Lampre), Nick Nuyens (Garmin) and Linus Gerdemann (Astana). Paolini took the points in the third mountain sprint, the Cote du Pourville-sur-Mer, and tied with Daniel Martin at the front of the classification. With 129 kilometers to go they had 10 minutes on the peloton.
The main bunch gave a great push ahead of the sprint in Fecanmp. They brought the gap of the break down to 2 minutes with 76 kilometers to go. At the peloton Marcel Kittel easily beat Jose Joaquin Rojas and Ben Swift. It is surprising how badly positioned was Andre Greipel ahead of the sprint, where he did not take any points.
The bunch played with the break and caught them when they wanted. Jan Barta tried a last go with 8 kilometers remaining but it was clear that it was a desperate attempt. It is surprising to see riders like Roman Kreuziger working at the front of the peloton, as they might be hurting their chances of a good GC. The bad news is that a crash affected 10 riders a while ago, but everyone involved seems to be okay.
Sky had the best train with 3 kilometers remaining. Gregory Rast was ready to lead Ben Swift out but the British had the always dangerous Jose Joaquin Rojas on his wheel. Discovery also had a train slightly behind. This time it would be Heinrich Haussler instead of Jure Kocjan the last man for Kittel. Peter Sagan was right behind the German. Among the other sprinters Andre Greipel and Sacha Modolo look very badly positioned.
Gregory Rast is still leading Ben Swift as they head for the flame rouge. Other riders were already sprinting, like Denis Galimzyanov on the left side of the road and Haussler on the right. It looks like the Discovery rider has left Kittel behind. Jose Joaquin Rojas and Peter Sagan are both well positioned as well.
Peter Sagan is first with 600 meters still remaining but it is a close sprint, as Denis Galimzyanov, Jose Joaquin Rojas and Heinrich Haussler are right behind. Andre Greipel is trying to progress close to the right hand side of the road fences but he looks too far back to fight for the win. Meanwhile, Ben Swift has just come out of Rast's wheel. It looks too late for the British.
Jose Joaquin Rojas wins in Rouen! A great sprint from the Spaniard, who knew what wheel to choose in the run down to the sprint and then had the strength to beat everyone else. Ben Swift was really fast in the last 400 meters to take the second place in the stage. He surely was strong enough and mistimed his sprinting. The third place was for Andre Greipel, who looked good today, much better than in the third stage.
Peter Sagan and Marcel Kittel completed the top 5 for the stage. The points' jersey changed hands again and now it is Ben Swift who has a narrow 2 points lead over Marcel Kittel and 5 points over Kenny van Hummel. The Dutch, who was a surprising winner in Tournai could not be better than 7th today.
Few times have we talked about sprinters in the featured rider section, so today it is an uncommon day. Ben Swift has become the best sprinter in the field along with Peter Sagan in the last years and they are quite different riders. The British is a more traditional pure sprinter, but that doesn't take any of the merit away.
Swift has spent almost all of his career in the Sky team. Only on the 2010 season he was racing for the BMC Racing team but he was by no means the rider that he is now. His breakthrough year was undoubtedly 2012. On the previous year he had been able to win a stage in the Eneco Tour, but in 2012 he won a stage in the Tour de France and was 5th in the Vattenfall Cyclassics and in Montreal. The Tour de France win surely gave him a lot of confidence in his abilities and he already finished the season in the top 30 of the World Tour classification.
Last year was the confirmation that we could be witnessing the emergence of one of the dominators of the sprints in the coming years. He was the main leader of a very weak Sky team for the second time in a row and he did not disappoint. He took three stage wins in the Vuelta a España, one in Tirreno - Adriatico, 2 in Poland and won the Vattenfall Cyclassics. The Hamburg race was the first major victory of the British, but the three stage wins in a Grand Tour are not in the legs of many riders.
2014 has been somewhat more difficult for Swift. He has still to win a stage but he took a very good 2nd place in the Milano - Sanremo, his best result in the only monument that he seems to have the potential to win. However, the importance of Ben Swift for his team, Sky, surpasses the number of win and results he has achieved. When he became the leader of the team, in 2012, Sky was dead last in the World Tour rankings. He has been the inspiration behind the emergence of Sky as a team to take into account in the World Tour.
The race goes back towards the east in the sixth stage between Rouen and Saint Quentin. The options are again rather limited in terms of the outcome of the stage, as the mass sprint looks almost unavoidable today. The teams of the sprinters have been strong in the last days. The points jersey, led by Ben Swift will be the other hot topic of the day.
The weather was horrible today at the start in Rouen and did not really improve throughout the stage. A group of 4 is the break of the day: Anthony Roux (Astana), Diego Ulissi (Lampre), Filippo Pozzato (Quickstep) and Borut Bozic (HTC). They made it to the sprint in Breteuil (89 kilometers to go) with a gap of 5 minutes over the main group. On the sprint of the group Ben Swift increased his small lead on the green jersey by beating Marcel Kittel and Andre Greipel.
Radioshack and Discovery are working again in the front of the group today and with 10 kilometers remaining the break only has a gap of 25 seconds. The timing to catch the breaks has been perfect so far. Both teams would be deserving a win already given the work they put at the front of the pack but neither Greipel nor Kittel seem to be in top shape.
Radioshack had again the leading sprint train with Daniele Bennati acting as the last man for Andre Greipel. Tyler Farrar was better positioned today and managed to take the wheel of the German. Behind them, Discovery had Haussler ahead of Marcel Kittel, with Sacha Modolo right behind. The third train was Sky's where Rast was going to be the last man for Ben Swift.
Bennati keeps the front position again ahead of the flame rouge while leading Andre Greipel. The German has to win a stage sooner than later with this kind of lead-out. Tyler Farrar is keeping his position better than in the previous stage today and is right behind. However, Ben Swift looks even more threatening as Gregory Rast is dragging him towards the front. On the other side of the coin Yauheni Hutarovich lost his position completely and is out of the picture.
Andre Greipel takes the lead ahead of Tyler Farrar as the sprint starts, the German is looking better than in previous days. Sacha Modolo has climbed to the third place right behind the American, but he started to sprint quite early. On the left side of the road Ben Swift is also trying to progress.
Sacha Modolo wins in Saint Quentin! A terrific sprint by the Italian. Modolo was third with 500 meters remaining and managed to get past Greipel and Farrar after drifting to the right of the road. However, it might well be that the best sprint of the day was by Marcel Kittel, who took the second place of the stage. The German was nowhere to be seen until the last few meters.
The top 5 of the stage was completed by Ben Swift, Tyler Farrar and Andre Greipel. With today's result Marcel Kittel edges out Ben Swift on the point's classification. The two of them have opened a gap with Andre Greipel at the top, as the German sits almost 20 points behind. However, with 45 points on offer on the stages not finishing in a mountain-top this classification is still very open.
For the third day in a row it looks like the sprinters will be the riders to look at for the stage win. The race continues its way East back towards the border with the Belgian frontier. The accumulated climbing of today's stage is even lower than in the previous day, not even reaching the 1,000 meters mark.
Only a small group of riders was again allowed to go to the front of the race. The break was formed soon into the stage with a group of 4: Sebastian Langeveld (Movistar), Michal Kwiatkowski (Garmin), Lars Bak (Cannondale) and Linus Gerdemann (Astana). They soon opened a big gap on the main bunch that reached 8' 20'' with 122 kilometers still remaining.
The intermediate sprint in Chauvoncourt was 69 kilometers from the finish line but it was disregarded by a lot of sprinters today, maybe focusing in the stage win as the gaps in the points' classification have opened up a little bit. Andre Greipel easily took the points ahead of Ben Swift. The gap to the break had shrank a lot in the run towards the sprint and was 2' 30'' at that point.
Michal Kwiatkowski tried a solo attack late in the stage but he was powerless to resist the pace of the main group as he was about to be caught with 8 kilometers remaining. Sky, Radioshack and Discovery are setting the pace in the main group and again have timed the pace perfectly to catch the break. Surprisingly enough, three sprinters have won so far and none from any of these teams.
Only Radioshack had finished forming his sprint train with 3 kilometers remaining as Discovery and Sky are still getting organized. Bennati would be working for Andre Greipel again. There has been strong winds during all the stage today and the pack is much longer than usual. As a consequence, Tyler Farrar and Yauheni Hutarovich are having trouble getting to the front and positioning themselves.
Heinrich Haussler was late to pick Marcel Kittel behind him but he is doing a great job and they have overtaken the Radioshack train as they close into the last kilometer. A surprising Samuel Dumoulin in the white jersey has taken the wheel of the German instead of his teammate Sacha Modolo. Matthew Goss and Peter Sagan also look well positioned ahead of the final burst.
Samuel Dumoulin surprisingly overtook Marcel Kittel as they started sprinting. It looks like the German might have wasted a lot of energy in the positioning today. Behind them is Andre Greipel looking very strong while the fourth place so far is for Peter Sagan but a gap has already appeared between the top three and the Slovakian.
Samuel Dumoulin wins in Metz! This is a huge surprise. It is amazing that Dumoulin, not even among the top three sprinters in the Euskaltel team, has been able to win ahead of some of the top sprinters of the World, Andre Greipel and Marcel Kittel. It looks like wearing the white jersey and riding the Tour are doing miracles for the French.
As I said, Greipel missed narrowly on the stage win and took the second place while Kittel was third. Sacha Modolo and Denis Galymzyanov completed the top 5 of the stage. Kittel will retain the green jersey 8 points ahead of Greipel and 13 ahead of Ben Swift, who could not be better than ninth today.
The long awaited mountains of the Tour de France start in the eighth stage, as the race enters the Jura mountains. The stage will not be too hard, with only a couple of minor climbs and several hills before the final climb to La Planche des Belles Filles. The last climb is only 6 kilometers long, but steep enough so that some differences might appear even considering the relative lack of difficulties in the rest of the stage. It will also be interesting to see the attitude of the riders at the first mountains stage.
The break reached the intermediate sprint at Sainte-Helene with a gap of 4' 30'' over the main bunch. The sprint was won by Andrew Talansky (HTC) ahead of Tiago Machado (Saxo - Tinkoff) and Miguel Angel Rubiano (Ag2r). Other important names in the break of 9 were Samuel Sanchez (Discovery), Philippe Gilbert (Radioshack) and Vincenzo Nibali (Lampre). Only one point was available at the sprint for the peloton, so the sprinters can be relaxed today.
Dries Devenyns, Matthias Frank, Cadel Evans and Pavel Brutt attacked in the first categorized climb of the day and managed to join the front group at the second climb, the Col du Mont de Fourche (47 km to go). Devenyns took the points of the mountains there ahead of Sergey Firsanov. Euskaltel had taken command of the peloton as the gap sit at 3 minutes at that point. The front group is now really dangerous.
Tiago Machado, Mauro Santambrogio and Vincenzo Nibali attacked from the break in the last hill before the climb to Belles Filles. With 11 kilometers to go they had 20 seconds on the rest of the group and the main bunch was 2 minutes behind. Several riders tried to attack in the same hill from the peloton but Lieuwe Westra is doing a good job at keeping things together.
David Lopez, Robert Gesink and Peter Stetina tried an attack at the bottom of the last climb but they could not go anywhere as Vacansoleil kept a high pace in the approximation to the Planche des Belles Filles. The break started the 6 kilometers climb with 1' 40'' over the bunch, where a lot of riders had already dropped off the back of the group and only 75 remained in front.
Tiago Machado attacked in the front group and was soon joined by Matthias Frank at the front of the race. With less than 4 kilometers remaining they had 40 seconds on a group of 5 riders including Devenyns and Evans while the rest of the early break was already losing 1' 30''. Among the favorites Hubert Dupont and David Lopez were about to bridge the gap to that group but Mollema was unimpressed and now had Betancur working at the front of the main group, 2' 05'' behind the leaders. The increase in the gap tells that Machado's attack was a strong one.
Matthias Frank was super strong today and left Tiago Machado behind easily with 3 kilometers to go. The Portuguese joined a group of 4 with Devenyns leading the chase, but the Swiss had a gap of 40 seconds as he entered the last kilometer. In the main group all the favorites are back together after a good attempt by Vanendert. It does not look as there will be any significant difference today.
Matthias Frank wins in La Planche des Belles Filles! An incredibly important win for the Garmin team, their first of the season. Even better still is that with the gap that he opened Frank is going to be the new leader of the race. The group of 4 chasers lost 1' 02'' at the finish line, with Dries Devenyns beating Cadel Evans for the second place of the stage.
The favorites made it to the finish together 1' 35'' behind Frank but most of them cannot be accused of not trying. Among those that should be fighting for the podium in Paris only Bauke Mollema stayed comfortably behind his teammates. The Dutch now falls to the second place in the GC, 1' 08'' behind Frank, but with the Swiss having no chances to win the Tour Mollema will still be the moral leader.
The medium mountains will be the field for the battle today in the Tour de France. The stage between Belfort and Porrentruy will be short by this Tour standards with slightly more than 150 kilometers. However, even with not many kilometers the stage will probably be quite hard, as there are no less than 7 categorized climbs, 5 of them 2nd category. The last climb, the Col de la Croix, is only 14 kilometers from the finish line.
The fourth climb of the day was the Cote de Saignelegier, 81 kilometers to the finish line. A group of 4 was leading the stage since the first climb: Jeremy Roy (Ag2r), Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack), Rinaldo Nocentini (Katusha) and Bart de Clercq (Lampre). It was surprising to see the Belgian there, as he could do a good GC if that was his target. 3 minutes behind were Davide Rebellin and Emanuele Sella, who had attacked in the previous climb, while the peloton was losing 5' 45''. Rinaldo Nocentini, who won the mountain sprint moved to the provisional lead of the mountains' classification.
A few riders survived in the main group for the intermediate sprint in Les Genevez, with 45 kilometers to go. Sacha Modolo outsprinted Ben Swift and Peter Sagan to cut the lead a little bit in the green jersey classification. The six riders at the front are together already and have 4 minutes on a peloton where Euskaltel, Radioshack and Discovery are working.
The penultimate climb was the Cote de la Coquerelle. The first attacks among the favorites happened here as the Spaniards Mikel Nieve and David Lopez managed to open a small gap. Sella, Rebellin and Nocentini are alone at the front and have 1' 15'' on the other three riders of the early break; 2' 15'' on Mikel Nieve; 2' 45'' on David Lopez and the group of favorites is losing 3' 05''. Among those who lost contact with the group of the favorites are Juanjo Cobo and Andrew Talansky.
David Lopez and Mikel Nieve joined forces in between the last two climbs and their gap over the group of the favorites grew to 40 seconds halfway through the last climb, the Col de la Croix. Peter Stetina decided that their gap was a bit too big and attacked, but he was closely followed by Rob Ruijgh. Meanwhile, Cobo was already losing 3 minutes.
Davide Rebellin left Nocentini and Sella behind at the Col de la Croix but he will have to fight a lot for the stage, as there are still 14 kilometers to go and Nocentini is only 20 seconds behind. The Italian was not the only threat as David Lopez was only 50 seconds behind. He has gone past Nieve. The favorites broke into pieces in the last slopes of the climb and a group of only 8 riders remained with the leader, Matthias Frank, including Bauke Mollema, Tejay van Garderen and Rob Ruijgh.
The group of the leader had grown to 11 riders with 6 kilometers to go, but a bigger group was trying hard to connect led by the Quickstep riders. At the front Rebellin was keeping 25 seconds on Rinaldo Nocentini and 50 seconds on Lopez, Sella and Nieve. However, some of them are going to be caught by the group behind as Frank's group is only losing 1' 20'' now.
Rinaldo Nocentini was trying hard to catch Rebellin but his chase was not going to be successful. As the Italian approached the last kilometer of the stage the gap had not decreased at all and the win was going to be for the Movistar rider. Lopez and Nieve had being caught by the chasers, as the group of the leader had grown to around 30 riders.
Davide Rebellin wins in Porrentruy! This was a very strong performance by the Italian to take his first win of the season. Rebellin had been quite disappointing in the Ardennes but this win partially compensates for those disappointments. Rinaldo Nocentini took the second place in the stage but he narrowly missed it as he was about to being caught.
David Lopez, Tejay van Garderen and Julien Simon completed the top 5 of the stage. The biggest losers of the day were Andrew Talansky, who practically lost his chances of winning the white jersey in Paris and Juanjo Cobo. The Sky rider had a really bad day and lost more than 8 minutes, practically saying farewell to his chances of a top 10 finish.
The first stage after the rest day will be a long time trial between Arc-et-Senans and Besançon that will order the GC a bit more than the hilly stages that we have had so far. Matthias Frank will have to fight hard to defend his leader's jersey against Tejay van Garderen and Bauke Mollema and it is entirely possible that he loses it here before the Alps stages.
Levi Leipheimer (HTC) was the first rider that had a chance to win today's time trial to start. Marcel Kittel had set the early pace, showing that he not only can do short time trials but also long ones. In fact, Leipheimer was unable to improve on Kittel's time and set the 3rd best provisional time 22 seconds behind.
Marco Pinotti (BMC) is another of the strongest time trialists in the field, but he seemed to be paying today having to work for Peter Stetina and Tejay van Garderen. He finished his time trial with the 7th provisional best, 42 seconds behind Marcel Kittel. The BMC team is very strong in this Tour de France and it is only logical that Pinotti will have to do domestique tasks here.
The rider that did not disappoint was Cameron Meyer. Some doubts had been cast on the Quickstep rider after his results before the Tour but today he had a great day and improved on the best time by Marcel Kittel by 31 seconds. It is going to be very hard that someone beats him today. Even with a great time he will not progress a lot in the GC, having started the day in the 39th place. The gaps in that area of the classification are too big.
Denis Menchov (Quickstep) again was a bit disappointing in a time trial. The Russian could only set the 20th best time so far, 1' 23'' behind his teammate Cameron Meyer. Even though this is not a great result for him he will probably finish the day in a better position than the 10th place where he started.
Tejay van Garderen (BMC) is usually the main alternative to Cameron Meyer in a time trial but he could not match the pace of the Australian this time. The BMC rider set the 4th time so far 41 seconds behind as the top 3 in the stage were still Meyer, Kittel and Westra. Tejay was 1' 31'' behind in the GC before the stage and was aiming to take the leader's jersey today.
The fifth in the GC before the time trial was Jelle Vanendert (Lotto). However, the Belgian is not the best time trialist and lost 2' 23''. That will leave him outside of the top 10 around 1' 30'' behind Tejay van Garderen. Lotto still has two options for the GC, as Vanendert and Kiserlovski are outside of the top 10 but within reach of the podium.
Another Belgian, Dries Devenyns (BMC), was fourth to last to start. He was also rather poor and lost more than 3 minutes today. This will drop him outside of the top 20 and will make clearer that the main riders for BMC will be Van Garderen and Stetina. Devenyns will finish the day more than 2 minutes behind his teammate.
The next up is Bauke Mollema (Vacansoleil). The Dutch is the main favorite for the Tour and he already wore the yellow jersey but he was not going to recover it today. He set the 11th best time 1' 09'' behind Meyer and that means that he falls 5 seconds behind Tejay van Garderen in the GC. The American was the only rider to beat Van Garderen in the Dauphine and looks set to battle it in the Tour as well.
Davide Rebellin (Movistar) followed the Dutch. He was nowhere near him and could only only be 3rd to last today. He lost more than 3 minutes and that will drop him to the 24th place in the GC but he will not be bothered by that after yesterday's win. In fact, the effort from yesterday's break must have weighed on him.
Matthias Frank (Garmin) was the last to start. The Swiss was solid enough to keep the yellow jersey one more day as he only lost 1' 52'' to Cameron Meyer, enough to maintain 20 seconds between Tejay van Garderen and himself. The Garmin team, one of the weakest in the field, must be delighted with keeping the first place in the GC so many days.
Most of the main favorites are within 2 minutes in the GC, like Peter Stetina + 1' 30'', Rob Ruijgh + 1' 46'', Mikel Nieve + 1' 46''; Robert Kiserlovski + 1' 59'' and Frank Schleck + 2' 10''. In the green jersey classification Marcel Kittel has increased his lead. He is leading thanks to his good performances in the time trials.
The long wait for the mountains finally is over as the riders will hit the Alps today for the first time. The stage from Macon to Bellegarde-sur-Valserine has three categorized climbs, especially the Col du Grand Colombier. The colossus is 42 kilometers from the finish line, so it is difficult to guess what the attitude of the favorites will be in the climb. After that they will climb the Col du Richemond, where attacks are expected and from where it is all descent towards the finish line.
The intermediate sprint was rather early in the stage today in Villars-les-Dombes (149 km to go), so all the sprinters can fight for points today. The early break was already formed and had 6 riders, including: Julien Simon (Ag2r), Joaquim Rodriguez (Discovery), Igor Anton (Euskaltel) and Rigoberto Uran (Lotto). The French was the only one interested in the points and bonus seconds. Meanwhile, the sprint in the main bunch was won by Jose Joaquin Rojas ahead of Marcel Kittel and Sacha Modolo.
The first climb of the day was the Cote de Corlier (102 kilometers to go). Belkin, Vacansoleil and Cannondale had taken the responsibility in the main bunch and were holding the lead around 7' 15''. This climb, although 2nd category, was not hard enough to leave anyone behind. On the fight for the KoM points only Julien Simon was interested and took the 10 points on offer.
The riders reached the climb to the Grand Colombier and George Hincapie attacked straight away. BMC has a lot of opportunities in the mountains and with Stetina and Van Garderen fighting for the top places of the GC Hincapie has freedom to attack. Other second tier riders also attacked a bit later. With 12 kilometers still to climb of the Grand Colombier Hincapie was 1 minute behind, Emanuele Sella and Roman Kreuziger are 2' 30'' behind and the peloton is losing 3' 30''. Belkin is working at the front with Steven Kruijswijk.
Janez Brajkovic has done a great job in the front of the peloton and reeled back in the attackers and the early break. Robert Kiserlovski attacked straight away and opened a gap. With 5 kilometers to go in the climb the Croatian has 30 seconds on Juanjo Cobo and George Hincapie; 1 minute on Luis Leon Sanchez and Emanuele Sella and 1' 20'' on a bunch of 85 riders.
Kiserlovski made a huge bet in the climb to the Grand Colombier, as he opened a gap of 1' 40'' at the top on Cobo and Hincapie. The young Croatian is already leading the young jersey's classification and with the demise of Talansky in one of the previous stages is the main favorite in that classification. Meanwhile, the main bunch keeps losing riders as even Ruijgh and Dupont are working at the front. They are 2' 15'' behind Kiserlovski.
BMC made the peloton increase his pace at the start of the Col du Richemond as Hincapie and Cobo had been caught. Their work was in preparation for Peter Stetina to attack 5 kilometers from the top. The attack by the American is swiftly followed by Robert Gesink. Kiserlovski's gap has gone down to 1 minute due to the pace and the main group has gone down to 22 riders. Among those who lost track with the favorites are Hubert Dupont and Pieter Weening.
Stetina and Gesink were quickly reeled back in and that the last important attack in the climb. Kiserlovski made it to the top of the mountain with a gap of 55 seconds on the group with the favorites. Matthias Frank was surprisingly holding on to that group and he did not seem to suffer too much. Denis Menchov was the last rider to lose contact with the group, only Pierre Rolland was in front for Quickstep.
Tejay van Garderen attacked in the descent towards Bellegarde-sur-Valserine and reduced the gap to Kiserlovski to 30 seconds. The American could grab the yellow jersey if he manages to finish a few seconds ahead of Matthias Frank. The group of favorites was losing 55 seconds with only 7 kilometers to go. Juanjo Cobo and Xavi Tondo were trailing 2 minutes behind Kiserlovski.
Pierre Rolland, Cadel Evans and Rob Ruijgh are chasing in the favorites group to decrease the gap to Kiserlovski and Van Garderen with 2 kilometers to go. However, it looks like Robert Kiserlovski has the stage win in his hands.
Robert Kiserlovski wins in Bellegarde-sur-Valserine! The chasers pushed a lot in the last couple of kilometers and the Croatian only narrowly took his first win of the season ahead of Bauke Mollema and Rob Ruijgh. Kiserlovski has also secured a much bigger lead in the young riders' classification and he now has more than 5 minutes ahead of Julien Simon.
Bauke Mollema took the second place in the GC and decreased Matthias Frank lead to 19 seconds. The Swiss showed good legs today and holds to the yellow jersey one more day. It will be much more difficult tomorrow as the finish in La Toussuire will probably make bigger differences. The group of Menchov, Dupont and Talansky lost more than 5 minutes in the finish line and they have lost their chances to climb to the final podium in Paris.
