The first of four consecutive mountain stages and today's 101km route seems to be less suited for serious moves by GC-contenders: it's 25km downhill from the "Altos Los Cacaos" (Cat2) til the finish, so it will be interesting to see, wether there will be much of a selection between the GC-favorites.
GC-leader Maillet will at least have to take care of any serious attempts (and so will his team). Given his rather huge lead on most of the favorites, he may face some aggressive racing in the next days.
The short stage kicks off with the first of two categorized climbs and a group of 6 riders - including at least one notable name - establishes a decent gap quickly:
So with Ukranian road champion Topchanyuk (GC's 19th with + 3.36) there's quite a strong climber trying to go for a breakaway success (or just helping team-captain Efimkin for a possible attack later on?).. the group crosses the mountain-top ahead of the peloton, here's the result of the KoM-sprint:
KoM #1 (Cat3)
Redondo
Topchanyuk
Sarmiento
The gap though ain't too big halfway through the race, as teams like Nutresa and Dell kept the bunch within striking distance.. and here's the reason why:
Ochoa Quintero (GC + 3.36) and Feillu (+ 8.27) attacked the bunch and caught up to the breakaway 55km before finish!
So former race-winner Quintero, who's similar strong as Topchanyuk, also tries to "fool" the GC-contenders by going early today. Will this tactics pay off?
The two are joined by Brandt (GC + 3.36) a few moments later! The US boy puts some pressure on other favorites teams that way, as Eastman may have some decent support when trying to go for an attack already today. Today's only intermediate sprint went as follows:
Sprint #1
Redondo
Brandt
Yemane
So with Nutresa and Dell now stopping to chase, the breakaway is finally allowed a bigger gap. With 49km remaining, this gap is going up to 2 minutes.. and there's still some drama back in the bunch:
Pedraza crashes on a descent! Being one of the top-favorites for the GC, this would be horrible news for local team Mobil.. if he suffers an injury or even losing time that way..
But of course he would have some support by his team, which brings him back to the peloton with still 40km to go. The breakaway grew it's lead to 2'50" in the meantime.
The now 9-men-group enters today's most challenging climb with almost the same gap then: 36km remaining and the peloton is still within striking distance.
Yermane can't follow the breakaway's pace and is dropped early in the climb.
And now we see the first top-favorite to launch his move! Berhane wants to try something today and attacks the bunch 33km before finish (6km to mountain-top)! Maillet though quickly jumps behind, so looks well aware of attacks so far!
The GC-leader caught up to Berhane easily and they established a gap on the bunch.. two more riders attacked a few moments after Berhane:
Panayotov and Pedraza, currently 25" behind the duo with now 4.5km to the mountain-top..
It's an action-packed race now and more GC-favorites joined group Panayatov/Pedraza 2km later:
Eastman, Marzano, Nazaret and Kashechkin ain't too far behind Berhane/Maillet (still 20" in arrears).
Other favorites didn't join those attacks yet, trying to keep the bunch's (42 riders) pace up.
In the meantime, the breakaway group crosses the KoM-sprint, with three riders trying to go clear from their breakaway companions:
Terciado, Feillu and Ochoa Quintero (also the order for the KoM-sprint)! They lead by 2'05" on the groups of favourites with now 26km to go!
The situation behind changes with every metre being climbed! The chasing group Eastman/Nazaret managed to catch up to Berhane/Maillet in the meantime, so this is what we have with 26km to go and no more mountain ahead:
E1/ Terciado, Feillu
E2/ Ochoa Quintero at 0.21
E3/ Brandt, Sarmiento at 0.36
E4/ Pardilla, Redondo, Topchanyuk at 0.55
E5/ Nazaret, Maillet, Eastman, Pedraza, Kashechkin, Samwel, Yemane at 2.03
E6/ Marzano, Panayotov at 2.39
P/ 38 riders including Nerz, Schwab, De la Fuente, Efimkin at 2.51
No need to panic for those names not joining the attacks today: with still 21km remaining (and the road descending) the peloton (down to 30 riders) is just 16" behind the bigger group of GC-favorites!
And 16km before finish, the peloton swallows group Maillet. So we have 40 riders in the bunch, still being more than 2 minutes in arrears to the leading group(s)! We may see a breakaway win today and all GC-contenders finishing in the same group.
The situation at the very fron has slightly changed on the downill though: Brandt was the only chaser managing to bridge the gap to the leading duo! The US climber (GC + 3.36) may actually gain some valuable time today, given that this trio leads by 2'25" on the bunch with now 12km remaining!
The other former breakaway companions build a 5-men-group in between, but face a 56"-gap on the leading group.
And this gap is up to 1'10" with now only 2km to go! No more attacks (either in those leading groups and the peloton) until now:
Feillu attacks the duo and opens up a gap quickly!
It's looking good for him, as he holds on to a clear gap with the finish line already approaching!
He did it! Feillu celebrates a great win for his CT-team, defending a small gap on Terciado and Brandt, who is likely to make a huge jump in GC today!
1'45" later, the remaining escapees cross the line: former race-winner Ochoa Quintero, Pardilla, Sarmiento, Topchanyuk and Redondo will also gain some seconds on the bunch, which came quite close eventually.
2'11" loss for this bunch including all GC-contenders! No real drama, as Maillet defends his yellow comfortably. But especially Brandt (new 3rd, + 1.13), as well as Redondo (6th), Topchanyuk (7th), Quintero (8th) and Pardilla (9th) will at least be in a good position for one more day.. with Brandt, Quintero and Topchanyuk as the most dangerous of those.
