Today’s stage is a rather strange one. Almost entirely flat but with a large climb near the end of the stage that could really damage the peleton. The sprinters are all tipped to win but it could also be a stage that favours someone like yesterday’s winner Peter Sagan, who climbs well and can sprint decently. There are two categorised climbs out on course today, with first worth 10 points and the major obstacle of the day being worth 16 points for the man who reaches the top first.
Starting today’s race, the first two men to attack out on course are Arman Kamyshev and Evan Oliphant.
Neither of these men represent a real threat in any of the categories, so the peleton is happy for them to go off and start to build a gap. Sensing an opportunity, Petr Ignatenko attacks and starts to bridge across to the two men up front. He is over 10 minutes down on GC, but more importantly he has 18 points in the mountain classification, compared to Passeron’s 32. Rothaus have more important things to worry about, such as Passeron’s GC position, so they let him go and he joins the two men up front.
Their gap starts to grow out towards the 9 minute mark and the leaders go over the first categorised climb 8’50” ahead of the bunch. Ignatenko rolls over in first with Oliphant in second and Kamyshev takes third place. Tsgabu Grmay and Thomas Voeckler lead the peleton over.
The gap grows out to 9’20” as a maximum, but by the start of the main climb of the day the lead is down to 3’36”, with 41km to go. WWE are pushing a furious pace and clearly want to toughen things up today. Hopefully it will work out better than yesterday’s result for them.
Iganatenko hits the front of the break fairly early in the climb and almost immediately the other two start to struggle in the sections above 15%. They drop off his back wheel and start to drift back towards the peleton very quickly. At least Oliphant stays upright this time.
Obviously nothing can stop Ignatenko from taking the maximum points now and he rolls over. He will be taking the mountain classification at the end of the day and it is unlikely that he will lose it in the final two days. The two dropped riders come through 2’06” down and the pack is only another minute behind them. WWE continue to push the pace, as Diniz and Voeckler take the minor points on offer today. Over the last few days both have placed themselves fairly high up in the mountain competition thanks to all their work on the front.
WWE pusht eh pace on the descent as well, and given the strong downhill talent they have this proves deadly. The pack splits almost perfectly in half and there is a moment of panic for some teams as they look around for their key riders. Some of them can’t see them up front as a surprisingly large list of GC riders are left behind. These include: Alex Dowsett Sandy Casar Luis Pasamontes Samuel Sanchez
And 2nd place overall Aurelien Passeron
The way the split occurs, however, means that there aren’t a lot of key domestiques around. Pasamontes does a lot of work for Sanchez and Rob Ruijgh is around to help Passeron, but the GC riders are forced to really earn their keep and rotate at the front of their group.
Up front, meanwhile, WWE push with a renewed determination, as Thomas Voeckler realises that this is a perfect opportunity to move himself up on GC. The split also had the desired effect of dropping a couple of sprinters like Kenny Van Hummel and Pavel Korzh. Many of the top favourites for the stage are still up the front, however.
With 25km remaining Ignatenko is about to be caught by the first peleton. Sensing a rare opportunity to try something big, Koppert all-rounder Coen Vermeltfoort attacks out over the flat.
Under the 20km to go banner Vermeltfoort has a 40 second lead over the 41 man group behind him, who themselves are 1’29” ahead of the 25 man chase group. That gap doesn’t seem to be reducing at all, but rather is holding almost perfectly steady. That’s bad news for the second group, who don’t have the same depth of domestiques.
At the sprint point only one man is interested – Michael Vingerling. He launches a huge attack out of the group, burning past Vermeltfoort, but then slows down and drifts back in to the peleton after he goes under the banner. Vermeltfoort goes back to the front and continues pushing his own pace, with about a 20” lead. Once again the weather imposes itself and the rain starts to really come down.
With 10km to go, Vermelfoort’s effort had been stopped and he drifts back into the group. The chasing group is now down by about 2 minutes and will really struggle to get back in. The wind has really whipped up and several teams, despite their best efforts, fail to produce a strong sprint train. Eventually two competing trains form. On the left side of the road is: Reijnen King Bernucci Sagan Hermans
In the middle of the road is the sprint train that contains most of the big sprinters for the day: Vingerling Corioni Abdallah Borrajo Baumann Hopman
With 1.5km to go, there is yet another surprise! Coen Vermeltfoort decides that one attack in a day is insufficient and decides to give it another go in the strong wind.
This forces everyone behind him to open up their sprint incredibly early. The first to react are Corioni and Abdallah, while Galmizyanov comes from behind and finds himself in a great position. Vermelfoort looks across in desperation, unable to believe the acceleration of Venchi’s sprinter.
Corioni had read the move correctly and he proves absolutely impossible to catch. That’s two stages in a row for Venchi.
Behind, Abdallah manages to just beat Galimzyanov to the line.
Peter Sagan puts himself into 4th place with a tremendous sprint, putting him second on points at the end of the day. Meiji are pleasantly surprised to see Murakami in 5th. Hermans sprints for 6th place, which proves enough to leap him ahead of Konovalovas on GC. Keisse, Kessler, Hopman and Baumann round out the top 10. The clock has started for those who were dropped.
Sanchez leads his group in, 2’12” down. He drops to 15th place on GC and Passeron finds his advantage over Kessler reduced to under a minute, though there shouldn’t be many problems in the next two flat stages. Dowsett also moves out of the top 10, while Voeckler moves in to 10th place overall, justifying all of his work today.
