The final stage of the Tour of Romandie involves three more Alpine passes and we are on course for a tense finale. The final climb of the Ovrannaz tops out with 20km to go, so there are chances for riders to hold with an 11km descent and just 9km of flat to the finish.
Thomas Dekker
produced a tough man display yesterday putting young Taylor Phinney
and former race leader Aleksandr Efimkin
to the sword.
Meanwhile a number of favourites flexed their climbing legs yesterday, though a number including Robert Gesink Aleksandr Pluchkin
and Simon Spilak
were very docile.
Jack Wolfskin decide to take a different tack at the beginning of this stage sending Wout Poels
on the attack.
Just Sergio Pardilla
and Thomas Bontenackels
respond and these three will make our break of the day.
Pardilla and Bontenackets are fine tuning their form in advance of the Giro were it is likely they will not have the freedom to attack as they are key lieutenants for their team leaders Ricco and Sella. They have a chance of glory today with Bontenackets taking the first place at the top of the climb ahead of Pardilla and Poels.
The pack are lead over by Jude Libert
who adds to his points in the king of the mountains. Carmeuse will have been impressed with young Rein Taaramäe's performance yesterday getting second place to Contador. He surely needs to show something for the team to avoid returning to the CTour.
The three climbers ahead continue to build a nice lead as on the second climb the move to over six minutes ahead.
Bontenackets takes the second King of the Mountains climb and moves up on that competition to 32 points. With all three climbs offering 16-12-10-8-6-4-2 points the German can now take out that competition with a top three on the last climb. The current leader Dietmar Mehr-Wenige
has just 40 points and is showing no urgency to come up to the front and take any of the bonuses for the minor places.
Following the descent of the climb the pack do pick up the pace with 70km to go and it is Wikipedia who are hoping that Phinney has a better day today and can snatch the jersey back off of Dekker.
Phinney can sprint pretty well so the hope is probably that Phinney can take a win from a small group or use a combination of the late hotspot sprint and the finish to overtake Dekker.
The Yellow jersey does not look in any difficulty however and looked pretty tough yesterday finishing in third place himself.
The King of the Mountains Mehr-Wenige is sitting way back he left a lot of energy out on the course on stage 2, where he struggled bravely to hang on to Efimkin's stage winning move. He hopes probably for fireworks on this last climb and for Bontenackets to be caught.
As we get to the foot of the last climb measured at about 12.5km, the break have a lead of just over three minutes. Much now depends on the pace of the pack which in truth does not look particularly hot as Wikipedia and Spyker riders are spread across the road.
Indeed with 7.5km to go the gap is still three minutes, the break of three are proving to be very solid climbers. Mehr-Wenige meanwhile is really struggling before the pace is put on, the young German clearly has very little left.
With 5500m of climbing left finally it is a Pendleton's rider who lights it up.
An interesting group of riders, none a threat on GC but all are very solid climbers indeed particularly Serpa. Iglinski is probably Vesuvio's last shot at tracking down Bontenackets and protecting that King of the Mountains lead. It should be noted that Pardilla in the break has 24 points and can also match Mehr-Wenige's 40 points.
The first GC contender to launch is Alberto Contador
with Serpa up the road this is certainly a good move by Festina.
Contador was lying 8th this morning 2.12 down on Dekker, though the Spanish rider is probably realistically trying to move up a few places on GC rather than attack the leader.
Nethertheless Thomas Dekker
is taking no chances and when Rein Taaramäe
attacks he latches onto him.
Dekker really impresses here as he moves past the Estonian and quickly up to a stunned Contador.
With Contador and Taaramae now up the road with race leader Thomas Dekker it is time for Rigoberto Úran
to make his move. This is perhaps the last ship to leave the pack so Peter Velits Daniel Martin Taylor Phinney
and Simon Spilak
decide to join it.
We are close to the top now and the lead three have just a minute which is dwindling fast, Sergio Pardilla
makes one last desperate bid to summit before the chasers can catch them.
Poels is able to stay pretty close, Bontenackets just concentrates on maintaining his rhythm. Pardilla takes out the prime to move to 40 KoM points, Poels is second on this climb to move to 32 KoM points and Bontenackets holds on for third to win the KoM competition with 42 KoM points.
A little lower down we can see Dekker looking comfortable with the two Festina riders Serpa and Contador, Iglinski and Taaramae.
Dekker is in no rush though to catch the leaders and whilst the fading Bontenackets is mopped up by these five, Pardilla and Poels are pushing on holding a minutes advantage on the descent.
The next group on the road is lead down the mountain by Spilak.
It also contains Vladimir Karpets Martin Hacecký Andrei Amador Peter Velits Daniel Martin Thomas Faiers Taylor Phinney Rigoberto Úran Thomas Lövkvist David Arroyo Teodoro Costagli Robert Gesink Walter Pedraza Jaime Suaza
and Tanel Kangert
It is strange to see Wiggle rider Costagli there as Wiggle's GC rider and 4th on GC Timofey Kritskiy
is not in this group and is in the next group on the road being lead by Aleksandr Pluchkin
another minute behind.
Meanwhile former race leader Aleksandr Efimkin
has cracked badly on this last climb and is way back about two and a half minutes behind the Kritskiy group.
Pardilla leads Poels over the intermediate sprint with Dekker seemingly confirming his Romandie victory taking the third place. All six of his closest rivals are behind him in separate groups, the Dutchman looks secure.
In the Phinney group, a hungry looking Spilak attacks out of it with 5.5km of the stage left taking Amador, Martin, Arroyo, Karpets and Uran with him. No reaction from Phinney who could be struggling to hold on to a podium place by letting Amador and Karpets go once again.
Pardilla and Poels have struggled to hold their lead over the Dekker group, but they still have a handful of seconds into the final kilometer.
Pardilla has saved up a final kick and Poals cannot respond.
The Bacardi rider gives his team a welcome boost before their big Giro D'Italia assault by taking the final stage of the Tour of Romandie.
Poels holds on for second ahead of Thomas Dekker who has signalled that he is in fine fettle for a Tour de France campaign. Karpets is 4th, with he and the attackers with Spilak managing to track down the Dekker group in the finale. This nullified the gains that Contador and Taaramae may have been looking to make.
Phinney by virtue of his early two stage wins will hold the points jersey , finishes 1.04 back from the Dekker/Amador group meaning he holds the runner up spot by four seconds.
Kritskiy who was 4th at the start of the day finishes another 44 second back from that in the group led in by Pluchkin. The Russian slips down to 7th place behind Contador, Amador, Karpets and Arroyo. Amador by the way manages to take the third place on the podium a very good effort after his bud luck on stage 2.
Efimkin who was lying in third at the start of the day plunges down the GC to 17th place after really struggling on the final climb. His group finishing over five minutes down on the stage winner.
A solid team showing throughout the race by Carmuese who got in some breaks and some strong climbing by Taaramae at the end means they sneak the team prize ahead of Spyker and Festina. Phinney of course wins the Youth prize, Kritskiy holding onto second ahead of Uran.
