The second week here concludes with a flat rated, but tricky stage to Palm Springs: 183km length, pure sprinters may fear the peloton pacing on those climbs halfway through the race.

If a breakaway won't take this, we still should expect a bunch sprint to happen: guys like Andriato, Mezgec or Drujon did pretty well to survive challenging profiles and should be more of favorites than Thorsen, for example.



Business as usual here, as the first 4 riders to attack form the break of the day quickly:

Craddock, Fritsch, Zaini and former KoM-leader Crane!

Zaini (+ 44.00 in GC) still has something to show here, while Crane (41pts) or Fritsch (34pts) may go for the mountain competition today..



We're already on those challenging climbs, when we see the man in yellow going down with a fall:

Eastman goes down on slicky roads, about 110km before finish! So quite early into the race. This is always horrible to see, so we just can hope, he ain't suffered an injury from this..



It's also a bad moment to go down, it seems: the peloton would start chasing the breakaway rather early and it's still surprising to see, that Eastman hasn't yet caught up to the bunch 20km after he fell!

Van Zandbeek, Wolf and English are those domestiques, who were sent back to bring Eastman back. But they struggle so far, as they're still 1'38" in arrears at this point!

In the meantime, the early escapees' advantage is down to just 6 minutes, while Crane fought his way back into the Top-3 in the KoM-classification:

KoM-competition Rousseau 67 Klimiankou 64 Crane 61



The sprinter teams don't show any sign of slowing down to allow Eastman to catch up: 60km remaining and you may notice the GC-leader still desperately fighting his way back. 1'45"-disadvantage, still!

Belarusbank, Magna and Repsol are leading the peloton and the breakaway's gap is down to 4 minutes..



It's a horrible scenario for Eastman though: 25km before finish, it's becoming clear, that he will lose time today! The man in yellow now leads his teammates on his own, while the gap grows up to 2 minutes with the sprinter teams keep up their pace!

Definitely something we never wanted to see here. Kashechkin already in the virtual GC-lead by 35" on Eastman..



And with the sprint now being kicked off, it's getting even worse for Eastman, who is now already 5 minutes down on the peloton, which swallows the early escapees right in time:

	Kankovsky
Racault
Speirs	Thorsen		Boaro
Drujon		Pereira	Lee
Haddou	Ewan	Aguilar	Mezgec
Sweeting		Manarelli
		Andriato	Stroetinga
		Nateghi
			Kashechkin

Kankovsky going strong early into the sprint, as Thorsen can't follow to drop far down the rows! Speirs/Drujon, Ewan and Mezgec are right behind, while Craddock was the last escapee to hang on for a while..



Kankovsky struggles to keep his pace with the flamme rouge approaching, it's now Speirs/Drujon and Ewan leading the bunch sprint! Mezgec still behind Kankovsky, with teammate Lee showing a second acceleration, too.

Moving forward from way behind: De Ketele and Aguilar/Manarelli!



Lee and Kankovsky are fading, as Drujon kicks off this final sprint with Ewan still at this wheel!

Also Manarelli now catching up with some tremendous speed!



Ewan now going head-to-head with Drujon, while Mezgec struggles to hang on. Manarelli definitely the fastest at this point, but maybe too late..



..yes, he was: an up and coming Ewan proves his great potential by taking line honours ahead of Drujon and Manarelli! A great win for Ewan on a stage, that suits his skills quite well.

Mezgec and Aguilar round up the Top-5, while Kankovsky has to settle for 11th place today. Andriato was a non-factor as 13th today..

..but where will Eastman end up?



Incredible tough luck for the US boy today: Eastman finishes the stage off with a 6'54"-gap on the peloton! It might not have been the smartest move to support Eastman with just three rather weak domestiques, even though the team might have wanted to keep at least Stetina in the GC-contention, in case Eastman had suffered a serious injury there.

We still have to see the following days, how this crash will influence Eastman's performance, but for now, he loses his GC-lead to Kashechkin to drop down to 2nd place with a 5'36"-deficit on the Kazakh! Thanks to those two's dominance so far, he still maintains a minutes-gap on Rohregger, which might be the only good news for Heineken today.

Final Results Stage 14/

1	Caleb Ewan	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	4h25'03
2	Mathieu Drujon	Magna - Ryanair	s.t.
3	Carlos Alexandre Manarelli	Bonsucro	s.t.
4	Luka Mezgec	Kazzinc Procycling	s.t.
5	Héctor Fabian Aguilar	Bonsucro	s.t.
6	Robert Sweeting	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	s.t.
7	Hossein Nateghi	Meiji - Cannondale	s.t.
8	Kenny De Ketele	Wounded Warrior Racing	s.t.
9	Saïd Haddou	Wounded Warrior Racing	s.t.
10	Isaac Speirs	Magna - Ryanair	s.t.
11	Alois Kankovský	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	s.t.
12	Wei Cheng Lee	Kazzinc Procycling	s.t.
13	Rafael Andriato	Repsol-Cativen	s.t.
14	Tommy Zaini	Meiji - Cannondale	s.t.
15	Wim Stroetinga	Team Chiquita - Universal	s.t.
16	Momchil Robov	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	s.t.
17	Manuele Boaro	Kazzinc Procycling	s.t.
18	Daniel Thorsen	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	s.t.
19	Simon Clarke	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	s.t.
20	Andrei Kashechkin	Repsol-Cativen	s.t.
21	Kim Marius Nielsen	Repsol-Cativen	s.t.
22	Ronan Racault	Magna - Ryanair	s.t.
23	Jimmi Briceno	Repsol-Cativen	s.t.
24	Phillip Gaimon	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	s.t.
25	Matthew Crane	Wounded Warrior Racing	s.t.
26	Dominik Hrinkow	Magna - Ryanair	s.t.
27	Benjamin Dyball	Wounded Warrior Racing	s.t.
28	Amets Txurruka	Bonsucro	s.t.
29	Mike Friedman	Team Chiquita - Universal	s.t.
30	Julián Rodas	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	s.t.
31	Thomas Rohregger	Magna - Ryanair	s.t.
32	Cyril Lemoine	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	s.t.
33	Jairo Agudelo	Kazzinc Procycling	s.t.
34	Pedro Sequera	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	s.t.
35	Dainius Kairelis	Control Team	s.t.
36	Jakub Danacik	Kazzinc Procycling	s.t.
37	Chad Haga	Team Chiquita - Universal	s.t.
38	Fumiyuki Beppu	Meiji - Cannondale	s.t.
39	Lawson Craddock	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	s.t.
40	Serge Pauwels	Magna - Ryanair	s.t.
41	Sven Fritsch	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	s.t.
42	Jorge Adelbo Soto Pereira	Bonsucro	s.t.
43	Mattia Pozzo	Kazzinc Procycling	s.t.
44	Fredy Piamonte	Team Chiquita - Universal	s.t.
45	Fabio Montenegro	Team Chiquita - Universal	s.t.
46	Alexei Tsikhanau	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	s.t.
47	Steve Fisher	Wounded Warrior Racing	s.t.
48	Yukihiro Doi	Meiji - Cannondale	s.t.
49	Yamato Shirota	Meiji - Cannondale	s.t.
50	Jonathan Camargo	Bonsucro	s.t.
51	Sergey Rudaskov	Wounded Warrior Racing	s.t.
52	Paul Mach	Wounded Warrior Racing	s.t.
53	Tomasz Zywer	Control Team	s.t.
54	Jessy Anthony	Heineken-Cal Giant	s.t.
55	Nicolas Rousseau	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	s.t.
56	Thomas Peterson	Heineken-Cal Giant	s.t.
57	Basilio Ramos Ticona	Magna - Ryanair	s.t.
58	Konstantin Klimiankou	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	s.t.
59	Ivor Bruin	Control Team	s.t.
60	Jiri Hudecek	Kazzinc Procycling	s.t.
61	Romain Bardet	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	s.t.
62	Georgi Petrov Georgiev	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	s.t.
63	Stanislau Bazhkou	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	s.t.
64	Wilmer Vasquez	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	s.t.
65	Paúl Torres	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	s.t.
66	Jason Donald	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	s.t.
67	Diego Milan	Repsol-Cativen	s.t.
68	Yoshimitsu Hiratsuka	Meiji - Cannondale	s.t.
69	Pedro Pablo Pereyra	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	s.t.
70	Peter Stetina	Heineken-Cal Giant	s.t.
71	Rémy Di Gregorio	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	s.t.
72	Andrei Sakalou	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	s.t.
73	Miyataka Shimizu	Meiji - Cannondale	s.t.
74	Estifanos Kebede	Repsol-Cativen	s.t.
75	Valentin Stoenchev	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	s.t.
76	Patrick Oyakaua	Bonsucro	s.t.
77	Gert Rajala	Team Chiquita - Universal	s.t.
78	Luis Enrique Lemus Davila	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	s.t.
79	Carlos Johan Galviz	Repsol-Cativen	s.t.
80	Sylvain Chavanel	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	s.t.
81	Cayetano Sarmiento	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	s.t.
82	Ryan Eastman	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 6'54
83	Ronan Van Zandbeek	Heineken-Cal Giant	s.t.
84	Michael Wolf	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 7'42
85	Nathaniel English	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 9'05
86	Mark Griffith	Team Chiquita - Universal	+ 17'36

GC/

1	Andrei Kashechkin	Repsol-Cativen	54h11'03
2	Ryan Eastman	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 5'36
3	Thomas Rohregger	Magna - Ryanair	+ 6'31
4	Benjamin Dyball	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 8'36
5	Julián Rodas	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	+ 9'08
6	Chad Haga	Team Chiquita - Universal	+ 9'52
7	Yukihiro Doi	Meiji - Cannondale	+ 10'40
8	Mattia Pozzo	Kazzinc Procycling	+ 11'26
9	Jairo Agudelo	Kazzinc Procycling	+ 11'31
10	Rémy Di Gregorio	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	+ 11'46
11	Peter Stetina	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 12'07
12	Amets Txurruka	Bonsucro	+ 13'49
13	Georgi Petrov Georgiev	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 13'56
14	Miyataka Shimizu	Meiji - Cannondale	+ 15'34
15	Fabio Montenegro	Team Chiquita - Universal	+ 19'45
16	Jimmi Briceno	Repsol-Cativen	+ 20'20
17	Jakub Danacik	Kazzinc Procycling	+ 21'05
18	Alexei Tsikhanau	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	+ 21'29
19	Wilmer Vasquez	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 22'06
20	Jiri Hudecek	Kazzinc Procycling	+ 23'41
21	Thomas Peterson	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 24'17
22	Sergey Rudaskov	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 25'17
23	Phillip Gaimon	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	+ 25'51
24	Serge Pauwels	Magna - Ryanair	+ 26'16
25	Paúl Torres	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 26'30
26	Carlos Johan Galviz	Repsol-Cativen	+ 28'29
27	Jonathan Camargo	Bonsucro	+ 29'49
28	Jorge Adelbo Soto Pereira	Bonsucro	+ 29'52
29	Pedro Sequera	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 30'27
30	Cayetano Sarmiento	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 30'58
31	Fredy Piamonte	Team Chiquita - Universal	+ 31'32
32	Gert Rajala	Team Chiquita - Universal	+ 31'34
33	Sylvain Chavanel	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	+ 32'21
34	Jessy Anthony	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 32'40
35	Momchil Robov	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 33'03
36	Estifanos Kebede	Repsol-Cativen	+ 33'26
37	Pedro Pablo Pereyra	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 34'14
38	Romain Bardet	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 35'09
39	Manuele Boaro	Kazzinc Procycling	+ 35'31
40	Dominik Hrinkow	Magna - Ryanair	+ 35'44
41	Kenny De Ketele	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 36'32
42	Luis Enrique Lemus Davila	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 37'28
43	Konstantin Klimiankou	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	+ 38'39
44	Basilio Ramos Ticona	Magna - Ryanair	+ 38'45
45	Stanislau Bazhkou	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	+ 39'01
46	Diego Milan	Repsol-Cativen	+ 41'09
47	Yoshimitsu Hiratsuka	Meiji - Cannondale	+ 41'45
48	Tommy Zaini	Meiji - Cannondale	+ 42'42
49	Paul Mach	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 43'39
50	Lawson Craddock	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 45'38
51	Andrei Sakalou	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	+ 48'19
52	Sven Fritsch	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 49'38
53	Valentin Stoenchev	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 52'20
54	Yamato Shirota	Meiji - Cannondale	+ 57'19
55	Luka Mezgec	Kazzinc Procycling	+ 1h01'33
56	Mathieu Drujon	Magna - Ryanair	+ 1h02'56
57	Caleb Ewan	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 1h03'02
58	Wei Cheng Lee	Kazzinc Procycling	+ 1h03'10
59	Hossein Nateghi	Meiji - Cannondale	+ 1h03'50
60	Steve Fisher	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 1h04'10
61	Ronan Racault	Magna - Ryanair	+ 1h04'38
62	Cyril Lemoine	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	+ 1h04'51
63	Robert Sweeting	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	+ 1h06'06
64	Héctor Fabian Aguilar	Bonsucro	+ 1h11'53
65	Isaac Speirs	Magna - Ryanair	+ 1h12'06
66	Rafael Andriato	Repsol-Cativen	+ 1h12'08
67	Mike Friedman	Team Chiquita - Universal	+ 1h14'37
68	Ronan Van Zandbeek	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 1h15'01
69	Matthew Crane	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 1h16'53
70	Jason Donald	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 1h17'53
71	Kim Marius Nielsen	Repsol-Cativen	+ 1h21'31
72	Carlos Alexandre Manarelli	Bonsucro	+ 1h23'16
73	Fumiyuki Beppu	Meiji - Cannondale	+ 1h23'21
74	Nicolas Rousseau	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	+ 1h23'43
75	Patrick Oyakaua	Bonsucro	+ 1h27'20
76	Alois Kankovský	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	+ 1h28'14
77	Nathaniel English	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 1h33'26
78	Saïd Haddou	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 1h36'10
79	Michael Wolf	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 1h36'41
80	Wim Stroetinga	Team Chiquita - Universal	+ 1h41'15
81	Daniel Thorsen	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	+ 1h41'27
82	Simon Clarke	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	+ 1h43'27
83	Dainius Kairelis	Control Team	+ 1h46'12
84	Ivor Bruin	Control Team	+ 1h54'30
85	Tomasz Zywer	Control Team	+ 1h57'38
86	Mark Griffith	Team Chiquita - Universal	+ 2h18'02

Points/

1	Andrei Kashechkin	Repsol-Cativen	0	131
2	Ryan Eastman	Heineken-Cal Giant	0	124
3	Mathieu Drujon	Magna - Ryanair	20	110
4	Rafael Andriato	Repsol-Cativen	3	85
5	Daniel Thorsen	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	0	80
6	Robert Sweeting	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	10	78
7	Thomas Rohregger	Magna - Ryanair	0	69
8	Luka Mezgec	Kazzinc Procycling	14	69
9	Carlos Alexandre Manarelli	Bonsucro	16	66
10	Manuele Boaro	Kazzinc Procycling	0	63

KoM/

1	Nicolas Rousseau	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	0	67
2	Konstantin Klimiankou	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	2	64
3	Matthew Crane	Wounded Warrior Racing	20	61
4	Stanislau Bazhkou	BelarusBank Pro Cycling	0	60
5	Ryan Eastman	Heineken-Cal Giant	0	59
6	Momchil Robov	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	0	54
7	Manuele Boaro	Kazzinc Procycling	0	54
8	Andrei Kashechkin	Repsol-Cativen	0	50
9	Sven Fritsch	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	14	48
10	Valentin Stoenchev	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	0	48

Young/

1	Ryan Eastman	Heineken-Cal Giant	54h16'39 (1)
2	Benjamin Dyball	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 3'00 (2)
3	Carlos Johan Galviz	Repsol-Cativen	+ 22'53 (3)
4	Pedro Sequera	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 24'51 (4)
5	Momchil Robov	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 27'27 (5)
6	Pedro Pablo Pereyra	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 28'38 (6)
7	Romain Bardet	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 29'33 (7)
8	Luis Enrique Lemus Davila	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 31'52 (8)

Team/

1	Kazzinc Procycling	160h28'00 (1)
2	Heineken-Cal Giant	+ 6'16 (2)
3	Repsol-Cativen	+ 12'04 (3)
4	In-n-Out Racing Powered by Auchan	+ 13'13 (4)
5	Team Chiquita - Universal	+ 22'49 (5)
6	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 26'25 (6)
7	Meiji - Cannondale	+ 27'02 (7)
8	Wounded Warrior Racing	+ 27'11 (8)
9	Boeing-Bulgaria Bicycling	+ 28'35 (9)
10	Magna - Ryanair	+ 28'38 (10)