That was a really good stage from Kreuziger, taking 40 seconds out of Betancur and a minute and 20 on Hesjedal. Almost makes up for the Dauphine. Almost.
As always it is sunny and warm. Right from the start, a quite big breakaway emerges: It is Jeannesson (FDJ), Izagirre (EUS), Riblon (ALM), Voeckler (EUC), Taaramae (COF), Slagter (BEL), Serpa (LAM), Lagutin (VCD) and Moser (CAN) who form the 9-man breakaway. The best placed GC-rider is Voeckler being 10:10 in arrears on place 32. To overtake Rabottini in the KoM-Classification, Serpa would need to win all KoM-sprints and the stage in the end, so the winner is rather secure by now.
96km to go, E1 – 0:41 – E2 – 6:31
Nothing worth to mention happens in the next period of time, so we make a minor jump to the first KoM, where Serpa takes maximum points. With a big attack, he secured those points, but that led to a split, so at the moment he has gone away with Riblon, but both should be catched soon.
75km to go, E1 – 5:50 – Peloton
Although SKY was working all the way in the beginning, more and more teams now join the pursuit and therefore the gap begins to drop significantly. Everything is still possible for the break, but the teams behind look like they are hungry for that stage win.
55km to go, E1 – 4:19 – Peloton
A rather boring stage is going on as it went the whole day. Behind we have a strong chase going on, while the guys in front continue working like a clockwork. Meanwhile Moser takes the intermediate sprint in front of Serpa and Slagter. With the ascend of Col de Vars starting soon, things are surely going to heat up.
47km to go, E1 – 3:17 – Peloton
A solo attack from the pack! Barguil (ARG) tries his luck, but will he be able to reach the front group and keep the favourites away afterwards? This is definitely a hard task he has chosen.
40km to go, E1 – 3:00 – Barguil – 0:30 – Peloton
And the next attack is here. Danielson (GRS) is trying to join Barguil on his journey. Will double manpower allow them to take the stage win?
36km to go, E1 – 2:11 – E2 – 0:55 – Peloton
Now they are opening quite a gap. Some moments ago, Schleck (RLT) has joined Danielson and Barguil and now he is pulling them up the mountain increasing the lead on the pacing pack. Though I do not know why, FDJ is leading the pack on those first slopes so far, but all the big favourites are waiting behind.
34km to go, E1 – 1:36 – E2 – 0:45 – Jones – 0:30 – Peloton
The next guy looking for an exit visa is Jones (SOJ). He is gaining time on the pack steadily, but so are Schleck and Barguil, who are slowly dropping Danielson. All in all, everybody is gaining time on the early breakaway, but that is rather obvious.
32km to go
Serpa is again the first one to reach the mountain top. Until now he can still win the KoM jersey, but it does not look like he will win the stage because of the fast gaining chasers. Thanks to our helicopter camera, we see all important groups in one overview. At the front, Serpa and Voeckler have a small gap on the rest of the morning breakaway, but we will have to wait how groups will be on and after the descend, because there are several little gaps opening. Schleck is coming fast from behind, being roughly a minute behind the leaders. Jones and Barguil are trailing him, but have a 30 second gap. Danielson looks cracked and will certainly fall back to the pack, which is not to far behind and just consists of 80 riders roughly anymore.
24km to go, E1 – 0:39 – E2 – 0:56 – E3 – 0:33 – Barguil – 0:43 – Peloton
On the descend, things have changed just a bit. Riblon has reached Serpa and Voeckler, those three are really powering downhill. Then we have the old breakaway, which is pursued by Schleck and Jones. The Sojasun rider has proven that his 60 DH do not fit him as he not only gained strongly on Schleck, but also dropped Barguil. Danielson is back in the pack, which is shrinking as more and more riders miss important splits on the fast downhill section.
17km to go, E1 – 0:59 – E2 – 1:12 – E3 – 0:49 – Peloton
Things have lighted up. We have three groups now with significant gaps between them. Izagirre joined the head group with the rest of the morning breakaway still being behind, while Barguil came back to Jones and Scheck. Those are, however, losing time rather fast on the chasing pack, so their advantage should come down to a minimum before the final climb starts. We see those three guys that will be catched soon, but that was still a strong effort.
7km to go, Voeckler – 1:00 – E2 – 1:35 – Martin – 0:30 – Favourites group
Sánchez’ attack caused a major selection between the favourites. While Voeckler is still in front with Serpa, Riblon, Taaramae, Slagter and Izagirre struggling behind, a group of Jones, De la Montagne (COF), yellow jersey Froome (SKY), Van den Broeck (LTB) and Pinot formed. Martin (GRS) chose to attack those guys right away having a small gap now. Behind, Kim (EUC) and Trofimov (KAT) are trying to jump across.
5km to go, Voeckler – 0:56 – E2 – 0:45 – Slagter, Martin – 1:05 – Favourites group
Now Froome goes! Slagter dropped from the first chasers while Martin rode extremely well in the last minutes. From the favourites group, which has slightly changed seeing also De Gendt (VCD) and van Garderen (BMC) as part of the action, he attacks. However, most of the Top10 (Kwiatkowski, Kangert, Amador, Spilak, Klöden, Rogers) as well as Contador (TST) and Hinault (ALM) are still waiting in the big peloton not too far behind.
2,5km to go
Voeckler is now being catched by Riblon and Froome, who has powered away from the bigger group and already reached the front. Meanwhile van den Broeck tries his luck again attacking the other favourites.
1km to go
With a stunning attack, Froome rode away from Riblon and Voeckler. While the yellow jersey is motoring to the victory in the stage and GC, the latter two seem cracked. Now that Contador attacks followed by Mollema, van den Broeck and van Garderen, both are caught. But still we have a rather big group of favourites that somehow stays together all the time.
Finish line
And the other guys behind are also coming in now. It is Contador in second beating Hinault to third, then we have Navarro and Peraud finishing fourth and fifth.
Now on to the results. I have been pretty unlucky, because the game crashed exactly at the screen before the results screen, so I had no chance to export the results and unfortunately I fear those are removed after having the last stage raced (and it was the last stage). So I hope that the first five places are enough to give points for the stage, because just from the visual it is hard to recover the result (which was also the reason why it took me so long to post this last report). Luckily I checked that none of the Top10 GC-riders dropped out of that big group, so I could restore the following Top10, which has right places but no time gaps. Sorry.
For the other competitions I suppose we just need the winner.
Winner KoM: Matteo Rabottini – Vini Fantini
Winner Points: Chris Froome – Team Sky
Winner U25: Michal Kwiatkowski – Omega Pharma Quickstep
Winner Team: AG2R La Mondiale
All in all, I hope you liked my first reported stage race. I know the pace was a bit low in the end, that was because I took over the race and had not that much spare time. Sorry for no results for the last stage, it was pretty unfortunate. Edited by Silvio Herklotz on 14-06-2014 15:06
Amador did a great job to secure the top 5. Too bad that the 4th place does not give more points than the rest of the top ten as it happened so often already
But well, I cant complain as i would have gladly accepted it before the race
Atlantius wrote:
If you find and upload the save I'll extract the full results for you. I for one would really like them for the HQ
I would already have asked for that, but unfortunately that doesnt seem possible as the save disappears after the last stage. So when I checked for it, it was gone, which is in fact quite logical, because you usually just don't need it after finishing the stage race.
Or is there any location where it still exists?
Atlantius wrote:
If you find and upload the save I'll extract the full results for you. I for one would really like them for the HQ
I would already have asked for that, but unfortunately that doesnt seem possible as the save disappears after the last stage. So when I checked for it, it was gone, which is in fact quite logical, because you usually just don't need it after finishing the stage race.
Or is there any location where it still exists?
Somewhere in Docs/PCM 13/users/*your username*/database/solo I guess. And then the (most recent) file stage_raceX.cdb. That would be the race DB
Atlantius wrote:
If you find and upload the save I'll extract the full results for you. I for one would really like them for the HQ
I would already have asked for that, but unfortunately that doesnt seem possible as the save disappears after the last stage. So when I checked for it, it was gone, which is in fact quite logical, because you usually just don't need it after finishing the stage race.
Or is there any location where it still exists?
Somewhere in Docs/PCM 13/users/*your username*/database/solo I guess. And then the (most recent) file stage_raceX.cdb. That would be the race DB
What he said. At least that's how it worked in PCM11. I haven't actually checked in PCM13, but I doubt they have built in an intelligent "auto-removal of sufficient files"-function without telling us...
Today we’ll have a mild hilly stage. It’s not very long, being only 179km, and the stage is relatively flat. Close after the start, the riders have to climb the Julierpass. Chaves, Txurruka and Voigt can all take over the KoM there, since it gives 12 points. Though winning tomorrow’s MTT will give 12 points as well, it’s still something notable.
After the Julierpass, we’ll have a long downhill and a longer flat part. 10km from the end is where it really starts. The St.Luzisteig has to be ascented. It’s only a small climb, but it’s steep and it’s placed so close to the finish, that it might make differences. The downhill is practically to the finish, though the last 3km are flat. Will the GC contenders make a move or will a Meersman/EBH-type survive this?
Favourites
V.Nibali(AST)
J.Rodriguez(KAT)
E.Boasson Hagen(SKY)
R.Hesjedal(GRS)
N.Quintana(MOV)
G.Meersman(OPQ)
The Race 175km -
Nerz(BMC) attacks! Howes(GRS), Piedra(CJR) and Serpa(LAM) counter-attack. 174km -
Hoogerland(VAC) goes as well! Peloton doesn’t mind. 171km -
They already have 2 minutes. This seems to be today’s breakaway. Well, that was easy. Nerz is at 10 minutes, and the biggest GC threat here. Hoogerland is the only one having quite some KoM points, but with 14 points, it won’t be enough today, unless he takes the KoM 7km from the end as well. 145km -
The escapees start the climb, already having gathered 5 minutes! 136km -
Hoogerland wins the KoM sprint, bringing him on 26 points. He could take over the KoM lead for a day, if he manages to be the first over the late hill. Being 7 minutes ahead, the breakaway riders start the long downhill. 103km -
While the front group reached the end of the downhill, Saxo takes over the relay, having to take 6’30 on the breakaway members. 96km -
OH NO! Terrible news for BMC! Evans has stopped riding, he looks really injured.
The number 9 in the GC gives up! Major shock! 63km -
Howes ‘’wins’’ the intermediate sprint. The gap is only 4’30 now. 45km -
The gap is reduced to 3’50 now. A potential danger, but just a potential one. Katusha takes care of the peloton’s pace. 33km -
Piedra crosses the IS sprint in first. The gap is 3’30! While I expect that the gap can get a lot smaller on the last hill, this is really a tricky situation for the pack. 25km -
The gap still is around 3’30. The peloton is really giving this away, and Katusha doesn’t get a lot of help. 20km -
Under the 20km banner, the gap is just over 3 minutes. This has a lot of potential for the break, where everyone should be about equal on the hill, while Nerz is the fastest of the group. 17km -
Attacks from the break! With them likely winning it, Hoogerland attacks, and Piedra and Serpa follow. Nerz tries to get them back. 15km -
Great effort from Nerz there, closing the gap easily. It is energy-consuming though. 13km -
Hoogerland goes! Nobody counters, and Nerz does the dirty job again, for now, but he gets help.
The peloton is meanwhile still 3 minutes behind, they don’t give a shit today(except for Katusha). 10km -
There is still a gap to Hoogerland, but the riders start the climb now. Remember, if Hoogerland is the first on the top of the climb, he takes over the KoM! 8500m -
Hoogerland is back in the group now, Piedra did some good work. 8000m -
Piedra, Hoogerland and Serpa accelerate. Likely they do that for the KoM, but this could cost Howes and Nerz a victory, given that they stay in the saddle.
In the back, meanwhile, the peloton reached the climb.
Lots of riders attacked. Moreno(KAT) was the first one, but Hesjedal(GRS) and Betancur(ALM) were the first to follow. Kreuziger(GRS) decided to attack after, and Scarponi(LAM) jumped in his wheel, while Rodriguez(KAT) and Sanchez(BEL) attack as well, and Nibali(AST) follows. Hectic! 6700m -
Piedra takes the KoM sprint. No KoM jersey for Vacansoleil then. Piedra has a nice gap on Serpa and is even further ahead of Hoogerland, Howes and Nerz. The latter is really strong today, but shouldn’t he just have followed the attacks?
In the back, the 8 said attackers formed 1 group and have a gap, despite Sky and Movistar chasing. 4500m -
Piedra still has a gap, but this probably gets to a sprint. As said, Nerz is fast, but Howes and Hoogerland have a decent sprint as well. 3200m -
Piedra still has 14 seconds! This could be close!
At the back, the yellow jersey group reached the summit. Behind them, an elite group of 6 has formed, of Quintana(MOV), EBH(SKY), Porte(SKY), Visconti(MOV), Kiserlovski(RLT) and Ghita(ARG). Gaps won’t be too easy to close on the downhill though. 2000m -
Piedra can take this, but he looks absolutely tired! Exciting! 1300m -
It looks like Piedra will take this, with the pace at the back being dropped!
At the back, Ghita attacks from the Quintana group. He can take valuable seconds on Bardet and De las Campos today, to enter the Top 10. 700m -
Yes, Piedra is going to do this! Poor tactics by the group behind. Finish -
Yes, Piedra does it! Great victory for him and Caja Rujal!
Howes take second place, in front of Hoogerland and Nerz, who was in bad position for the sprint.
In the back, with 2km to go, the riders have already started sprinting. The group of Quintana is about to close in on the yellow jersey group, and the peloton is coming as well.
At 1km to go, Purito still leads the group, but Betancur is coming now, with LLS and Moreno being swift too.
Purito holds on for 6th, Betancur gets 7th, and LLS, Moreno and Hesjedal finish off the top 10.
Quintana and Porte couldn’t really get back to the main group and therefore seems to lose some valuable time today!
But no! The jury makes the crazy decision to award everyone the same time there! Jeez!
You’d say this is a terrible day for BMC. But I don’t necessarily think so. Nerz actually managed to end up in the GC Top 10 after today, being 9th! And BMC finally attacked!
Nothing else in the GC changed today, except Evans being replaced by Nerz at 9th.
(AST)
(KAT)
(SKY)
(GRS)
(MOV)
(OPQ)
