A couple of sprints today and the parcours are a bit deceiving it is pretty flat out there once again following that time trial yesterday.
One of the better time triallists from that test Thom Van Dulmen
manages to get up the road and take the early sprint. It will move him to within ten seconds of GC leader Chuzhda.
Sergey Sarkisov
is second and Gill Van Winckel
is third. It is nice to see Armavia and Delhaize two of the weaker teams in Division two so active in breakaways.
Indeed a huge breakaway of 16 riders forms.
Whilsts Sarkisov remains from the early sprint prime baggers Van Dulman and Van Winkel are back in the pack. The other 15 riders are: Guillaume Blot Matthew Crane Yannick Eijssen Juri Yuda Andrei Krasilnikau Andrea Masciarelli Ondrej Belohoubek Lubomir Petrus Marino Prestia Andreas Anderegg Cyril Lemoine Paul Healion Jaoa Costa Tobyn Horton Lars Andersson
Lemoine at 19 seconds was a bit of a threat and some of the riders were not working, so after a fairly long chase the pack caught them back up with 75km remaining and before the second sprint.
Whilst these four riders are very strong roulers they cannot compete with the determined Eurovision team helped out today by a willing EfTel.
The catch is made just inside of 10km to go.
It allows a better formation of sprint trains with Samsung Mol, again having done none of the chasing in pole position setting it up for green jersey wearer (though second in the competition) Daniel Thorsen
with EfTel having a rather shabby effort for Ashley Hutchinson
The riders of the Samsung Mol train are Pawel Szaniawski Thomas Murray Ino Ilesic Mike Friedman Tuguldur Tuulhangai
and Ivan Castillo
Samsung seem to lack communication however as Azizulhasni Awang
goes for a long lone move leaving Thorson behind.
It could be a good move though as nobody is really reacting with 800m to go he has a nice gap. Thorson Murray and Szaniawski are scrambling to get back.
But 800 metres is a long way in a sprint and things begin to come back together with Murray closing to the left and Ilesic easing through on the right. Meanwhile Freidman and Hutchinson (despite a pretty lame lead out) are looking for space in the centre.
Hutchinson is finding a good gap and has the fastest legs as with 200 metres to go the Awang move dies.
Freidman also comes fast late, but too late to stop Hutchinson taking a good win for the hard working today EfTel squad.
Ilesic takes second just from fast finishing Friedman, Castilo is 4th and Murray 5th.
Hutchinson takes the green jersey, with Freidman and Thorsen looking the challengers for that. No changes on GC today.
