After five hard fought stages, we are here for the final stage of this confusingly named stage race. Yesterday was a nasty day, today should be a lot calmer with less hills on the agenda. It would be a major surprise if things did not end in a sprint.
Much of the French press is wondering if Syvian Chavenal will launch a move but it is difficult to see how he can claw back the 8 second deficit. The points jersey is wrapped up thanks to Dumoulins really high finish yesterday, there will be some squabbling over the minor placings for sure.
As they exit the first village an attack comes from the peleton...
Irish champ Dan Martin (100% Me)
Other than Stannard's TT victory its been a barren tour for the British team, Dan Martin yesterday tried to shephard Stannard through the hills and sacrificed his own GC ambitions. Its good to see him on the move today. The pack see's two more riders breakaway..
El-Al rider and Intesa man
Its Agnoli and Sicard (2.30 down and 18th on GC) and they bridge quite quickly to Dan Martin. Its an interesting one this move, with Sicard thinking that if the breakaway succeeds he could move up on GC. Agnoli is 3rd in the mountain competition, he cannot move up but could have lost 3rd place. Anyway he takes the last sprint of the Dunkirk tour.
They are three quite strong riders and it's no surprise that they build up a 7.30 lead with 100km to go. So the pressure is on Wiggle here back in the peleton.
Paulo Locatelli leads the chase
Wiggle's pace does start to draw the break in, but fairly slowly with it cut down to 6.10 with 75 to go. Soon though Bacardi and Pendletons begin to help with the pacing and the time gap evaporates very quickly now to just 3.15 with 50 to go. The final coup de grace for the break is really when Ben Hermans comes to the front.
Best young rider
Young Hermans has ridden quietly towards this lead, but with many of the young riders falling by the wayside yesterday he has moved up into a young riders leaders position. The finish of this race has 3 sprint primes packed in the last 40 km as well as the final kick. The break of three mop up the first sprint with Sicard winning it, but with 27km to go they are caught. At the sprint...
Jaan van Heerden defends his sprint comp second place by winning.
In second is Seb Chavenel and Dan Holloway comes over 3rd. Seb Chavanel moves up the points classification, its currently Dumoulin (128), VH (94), Ignatiev (75), Seb Chav (64), Sylv Chav (63), Vantomme (62) and Borrajo (56). In the last prime which is pretty close to the end Van Heerden and Dumoulin don't really bother with it. But a good take for Seb Chavanel...
Bimbo man is making late move up points classification.
He takes the prime with Vantomme second and Peter Kennaugh 3rd. This last sprint was just inside the 10km to go banner and makes the sprint for the final very chaotic. Its Unicredit all rounder Boy Van Poppel who gets a bit of a jump.
Poppel power
He has a really good lead under the 1km to go banner...
Credit to Van Poppel
The pokerstars man in second is Niki Terpstra and Peter Kennaugh is to the left of him but in 3rd and 4th to the right is a a battle between Dumoulin and Van Heerden. Dan Craven is the Bimbo man and a little way back but sprinting into a top ten for the stage is Ignatiev. Unfortunately as the line gets close the Unicredit man loses power and Van Heerden keeps his line to put Van Poppel under pressure.
The Pendletons man overtakes.
... and Van Heerden wins to make it three stage wins in the dunkirk tour. Van Poppel takes 2nd with Dumoulin 3rd and taking the points jersey.
Ignatiev finishes 5th and takes a hard earned overall win.
