Let the mountains begin! I wonder who the stage favourite is, could it be race leader Franco Pellizotti? Funnily enough, it is!
The first KoM is 1km from the start. Yeison Delgado attacks from the gun to take it. Brutt takes 2nd, Ndbri 3rd.
After the descent from that climb, Pavel Brutt then launches away on a solo move
20km later, he only leads by 2 minutes - YouTube have been setting a tough tempo that has already dropped some. Ndbri and Delgado attack
They reach Brutt, but are chased down
So Delgado attacks again with just over 1 kilometre to the KoM point. He takes the points, while Brutt just beats Ndbri for 2nd
Its clear then that Yeison Delgado is targeting the KoM jersey, rather than teammate Gutierrez who led into the stage. Its interesting, as Delgado was listed as a 3-star favourite for this stage, along with Pellizotti and Anton
And once again, after the descent ends, Brutt attacks. This time the counterattackers are Dupont and Gutierrez Palacios though
Dupont and Gutierrez Palacios drop Brutt though and as they build a lead on the climb, Brutt falls back is caught, and then dropped. Theres 7 and a half kilometres to the summit - 60km to the stage finish - Dupont and Gutierrez Palacios lead by 3'40
With 3km to the summit, Dupont drops Gutierrez Palacios. He takes the points at the top then. Gutierrez Palacios is 2nd, and Delgado attacks to take 3rd from Ndbri. Delgado takes the KoM jersey then with 49 points, Ndbri on 44, Gutierrez Palacios on 38
Delgado and Ndbri drop back as usual, so we have a 19 man peloton. The biggest name casualty is Zwizanski
With 37km to go, Yasmani Martinez launches an attack. Basso counters. They only get 20 seconds up the road, to where Gutierrez Palacios is.
A few kilometres later, YouTube are stringing it out but Siutsou isnt concerned and launches his move
Nozal counters, then Petrov, Delgado and then Pellizotti
The attackers form together in one big group, catching Dupont
Tinkoff are opting to keep the pace of the peloton - theyd prefer Petrov to go clear in a smaller group, with less possibility for others to gain on Kritskiy and Kunshin, who seem to prefer not to attack. Theres another rise up a few km before the final intermediate sprint of the day. Siutsou and Pellizotti force a gap
Nozal and Petrov attack and actually get a gap on Siutsou and Pellizotti. But the sprint allows Pellizotti to close the gap
Martinez, Martinez, Basso and Ndbiri are already 50 seconds down, with the peloton at 1'10. The peloton, who now seem to be led by QUiksilver - despite 2 Quiksilvers being in the chase group - maintains the gap of 1'10 to the front 4, but those 4 chasers fall back - to leave only 4 clear.
Its looking good for this front group of 4. 5km to go, a minutes gap - now 3 of them will be trying to think of a plan to beat Pellizotti. Yasmani Martinez meanwhile has made another small attack from the peloton.
But the strength of Pellizotti is just too much! He rides away from his 3 companions
And so it is stage win number 4 for Pellizotti!
Nozal takes 2nd, from Petrov and Siutsou. A gap of 22 seconds to Pellizotti
Finishing at 1'14, Kunshin leads in Mercado, Kritskiy and the rest of the 16 man peloton.
