The opening stage of the De Panne Tour is the toughest which almost looks like a classic of its own. A bit of rain is forecast and it is fairly windy.
The King of the Mountains will also be decided today as it is the only one with classified climbs. We have five of them two of the climbs are cobbled and we have a further six stretches of the cobbled stuff.
Early on two very decent cobblers got clear in a break of five riders in Niels Albert
and Arnaud Coyot
They are joined by two young focused riders from the team of the same name Alex Kirsch
and Romain Hardy
Also here is one of the Pokerstars stock cobbled men Nick Ingels
It is quite a coup really to have such strong riders in the break, not that the pack seem to care with Rothaus and Proximus just tapping out a facile tempo.
The lead balloons to over 11 minutes at one point and the break is dominated by Albert, Coyot and Ingels. Ingels takes the first sprint from Coyot and Albert and they share out the points on the climbs so that after three climbs Albert has 16 points, Coyot and Ingels have 10 points.
Adam Blythe
cracks the whip in the pack and gets his lead cobbled domestique to try and do something about this crazy lead as Amadou Bakari
paces on the cobbles.
The focused duo in the break are getting not a lot out of it apart from occasionally giving the big boys a break. They are shelled out the back on one of the mountain climbs, with 50km to go they have lost nearly two minutes on the three cobbled riders.
The bigger news is that the pack are really struggling to pull this dangerous break back with the lead to the pack still nearly seven minutes at this 50km to go point.
Ingels has been trying to hang on, but he is now finding it tough and with 40km to go he has to settle in and try to protect his 3rd place on the stage.
Albert having sealed the King of the Mountains jersey by winning the 4th climb goes for stage and possibly race glory by attacking clear on the last KoM climb.
The pack have been resigned to their fate for some time as they catch the focussed duo and eventually Ingels too, they can only hear enthusiastic roars in the distance for Neils Albert. The Belgian has done this a number of times before and once again has stunned the pack with the boldest of breaks he wins the stage by nearly three minutes.
Coyot is the man at three minutes a good effort for Trilux really.
In the pack Blythe has the most strength in the sprint overhauling a cheeky late move by Sven Krauss
to take third.
The pack finishing 5.49 down on Albert means that Albert and his Bpost team will surely feel confident on defending the GC here.
