Note: There is only one sprint prime and one KoM prime, I guess one of each was taken out and put in a previous stage!
Today is the last road stage and after Luis Leon Sanchez Gil
seized control of the race yesterday, today looks like a day for a break or perhaps for the fast men.
Not too much enthusiasm in an early break but Tom Thill
is game for a solo effort.
He rolls through the very early sprint with Sergio Marinangeli
comfortably sprinting for second ahead of Samuel Dumoulin
It has been a contrasting start to the season for Venchi and Pokerstars, Venchi have really caught the eye as one of the new teams to challenge highly this season. Whereas Pokerstars expected promotion challengers have not been as present as they were at this stage last year. It's been a pretty sub par Algarve race for them as well.
A team having a good race are Unicredit who lead the teams classification and as we get to the foot of the first climb Matthias Brändle
moves away from the pack in pursuit of Thill.
Thill does manage to get over the KoM prime in first place.
Brandle takes second with Jurgen Van Goolen
third. This moves Brandle into 2nd overall to team mate Jordi Grau
and as there is not more primes they will take the one-two on that competition.
In another minor competition Georg Preidler
so attacking on stage 2 , unfortunately punctures and slips down the youth classification standings.
Brandle hooks up with Thill and the get a pretty good lead of five minutes into the last 50 km. But Pokerstars drive the pack hard to reduce the deficit.
When they are joined by Venchi and CalGiant the gap reduces quickly down to a minute with 25km to go.
The late climb sees some drama as race leader Luis Leon Sanchez Gil
attacks!
Clearly the Spanish leader is regretting his celebrations from stage three and now is looking for a bigger advantage over Lars Boom
But Venchi are pretty determined to get their stage win here and Franco Pellizotti
pulls Sanchez Gil back.
Sagan pulls him back as Nikolai Trusov
struggles to get on the train.
Sagan runs out of energy and Marinangeli feels the need to launch early, he has ridden away from this lot before , though today it really counts.
Dumoilin begins to draw level, though behind Haedo is having difficulty making up ground.
Haedo comes under pressure from Giovanni Visconti
and Vasili Kiryenka
even Lars Boom
is trying to get in on the action.
Not that they will change the Pokerstars sprint win, such a familiar sight to CTour fans this one.
Marinangeli pretty much confirms his Green jersey finishing second ahead of Visconti who has enhanced his high GC hopes grabbling eight seconds here. Kirylenka is a game 4th ahead of Haedo and Boom.
