As the race passes its midpoint, it serves up to the riders another potentially interesting race. This one is just constantly up and down over 148.9km.There are a lot of category 4 climbs out on course today, which each give 5 points for crossing them first. Because of this 20 mountain points are on offer, meaning that there are some riders who are within striking distance of Sella’s jersey. Because of the hilly nature of the course, the puncheurs are once again favoured. The Wiggle duo of Ponzi and Pavarin have been particularly deadly this race and they will no doubt be amongst the riders trying to do something on the final rise to the finish line.
Starting off proceedings is Martin Reimer. He has 6 mountain points and thus, with a bit of luck, could be within striking distance of temporarily holding the jersey.
Reimer stays out the front alone for a little while and builds a gap of over a minute. On a bumpy stage like this, however, there are always people who want to give it a go. Over the course of a number of attacks the following riders bridge up to him: Baños Ballester Vangheel Rosseler Quinziato Mendes Jacobs Rijntjes Lejman Porte Stenersen Howard Weylandt
To add to these 13 riders, Steensen and Ljungblad start to bridge across.
Obviously the prospect of a 15 rider breakaway is not something that the peleton wants to deal with, so Bacardi, UBS and Wiggle work together to shut it down. With 40km raced, everyone is back together.
It doesn’t take long for another group of riders to try their luck. This time it is Lejman Mendes Porte Quinziato Steensen Rosseler
All these men had been in the initial breakaway attempts.
Bridging up to these men is another group of 4 riders. They are: Sergent Jacobs Baños Ballester H. Machado
With 10 riders in the lead group, the attacks cease and everyone seems happy enough with this group of people. There is both a stage winner in Baños Ballester, as well as a former pink jersey wearer in Rosseler here. Mendes is the best placed rider, but he is more than 30 minutes down so he is far from a threat on GC. In terms of the mountain classification, Lejman and Porte both have 8 points and Quinziato has 6.
Almost as soon as the hill starts, Jacobs is dropped from this group, however. The chase combined with the hilly terrain clearly prove to be too much for him. Behind, one of Pearl’s sprinters Mauro Richeze comes off his bike.
Up the first climb, all three of the well-placed mountain classification riders go for the points. Quinziato leads Lejman over, with Porte in third. This puts Quinziato on 11, tied with Lejman. Sella has 24 points, so both are still within striking distance.
Up the second KOM climb, which is slightly longer and steeper, Lejman leads the break over this time, ahead of Quinziato, with Porte once more relegated to third place. This means Lejman is on 16 and Quinziato is on 14.
Up this climb Bacardi set a strong pace that succeeds in splitting the bunch, with 93 riders making the split. Several well-placed riders and some strong climbers miss the split, such as Faiers, Hoogerland, Samwel and Suaza. On the descent several teams in the second peleton group work together very well and manage to bring it back together. The peleton is still shedding riders at an alarming rate, however.
Over the third KOM climb of the day, Lejman once again leads Quinziato over, with Porte in a very close third place. Lejman is now on 21 and Quinziato is on 16. Lejman needs a second place at the next point to tie with Sella and a win in order to take the jersey. The break has a gap of 6’32” over the bunch, which is still lead by Bacardi. There are 67km remaining.
Bacardi clearly aren’t interested in chasing this too hard, however, and not many teams really want to help them at this point. As such, with 45km to go the break is at 8’20”. It is almost certain at this point that the break will be fighting it out for the stage victory. Indeed, through the sprint point with 34km left, the gap is almost at 9 minutes. Baños Ballester leads through, followed by Rosseler and then Steensen.
Right after the sprint point comes the all-important the crucial mountain point. Quinziato leads out up the climb and straight on his wheel is Porte! Lejman slightly mistimes his jump and finds himself in third place, which puts him two points short of Sella.
Porte decides to use this as a springboard for the first of the attacks out of the breakaway group.
Porte lacks much ability going downhill however, and he is caught in fairly short order by those who are chasing him. The increase in pace results in Jesse Sergent starting to yo-yo at the back of the group, however.
Meanwhile, behind the lead group Webeffect and Bacardi have raised the pace somewhat in order to try to weed-out some of the weaker riders. Seeing an opportunity to gain some time over a Bacardi team that has been chasing all day, Frank Schleck and Tiago Machado launch an attack 23km out from the finish line!
Pozzovivo is determined not to miss this attack and he jumps straight onto Machado’s wheel. Machado begins to struggle to hold Schleck’s pace, however, and Pozzovivo goes around him. Under the 20km banner, Schleck and Pozzovivo have pulled out 25” on Machado and another 20” on the Peleton. Bacardi aren’t chasing too much behind, and nor are Webeffect. Bacardi’s reason becomes obvious pretty quickly as Ricco attacks out, passing Jacobs in the process.
Ricco blazes past Machado and with 15km remaining he reaches Schleck and Pozzovivo. They have pulled out a 45” advantage on Machado and another 15” on the Peleton. Seeing that Pozzovivo could do with some help, Ginanni attacks from the bunch. He has Ponzi on his wheel and Sella joins on, hoping to neutralise as much of the gap as he can.
Meanwhile, up front, they have 9km remaining. Sensing that it is now or never, Gracjan Lejman launches his attack.
Going back to the GC battle, a new group forms behind the Sella group. It contains: Machado Denifl Levarlet Pavarin Carrara Cataldo Ghisalberti
With 10km remaining for Ricco and Schleck, the situation is as follows:
16”
41”
Ricco Group
--->
Sella Group
--->
Machado Group
Meanwhile, up front Baños Ballester has shut down Lejman’s attack and he seems determined to keep this neutralised, where Colombia have two cards to play in him and Honorio Machado.
Turning back to the GC battle, Ponzi closes down Ricco’s group, bringing Sella up with him. This means that the top 4 on GC are all together ahead of the other favourites. This means that none of them want to work together, however, so Ginanni decides to take advantage of a slight pause in the tempo to launch an attack. He is only aiming for a top 10 finish as well as bragging rights, but he gives it everything nonetheless. Straight onto his wheel is Schleck.
Behind this group of 6, Denifl and Ghisalberti are trying to work their way up to Ricco and Sella. Denifl wants to cut down as much time as possible, while Ghisalberti wants to help push the pace for Sella. Their attempts are neutralised by the rest of Machado’s group, however. Behind them , Devolder is trying to bridge up in order to avoid losing any more time. The situation with 7km remaining is:
28”
28”
22”
13”
Sch/Gin
--->
Ricco Gr.
--->
Machado Gr.
--->
Devolder
--->
Peleton
Schleck still seems to have plenty left in the tank and he attacks away from Ginanni. More importantly, he is drawing further away from Ricco.
Up front again, and with 3km left, on the final rise to the finish line, Quinziato puts in a dig. Baños Ballester is straight onto the front, trying to pull it back together again. Have Colombia missed the vital attack?
Pozzovivo realises that he can’t afford to lose time on Schleck either if he wants to fight for a podium place, so when Ponzi puts in an attack, Pozzovivo is straight on his back wheel. Ricco manages to follow this as well, but Sella seems to be out of energy and is left behind.
Quinziato has pulled out a 26” gap to the rest of the break, but with 1200m left anything can happen.
Meanwhile, Ricco gets on the front of his group. He picks up Ginanni, and in the process succeeds in dropping Ponzi. He looks like he is about to close the gap, but he falls just short. He has widened the gap to Sella, however.
At the same time, Devolder catches Machado’s group. Doing this caused Arroyo and Kohl to attempt the same thing. All they manage is to shut down Machado’s group and bring them back into the peleton.
Up front, Quinziato has lost a lot of his gap with 500m to go. This is going to be tight...
But he holds on for a stage victory! What a great result for Vespa! Baños Ballester is in second, ahead of Mendes in third, who pips H. Machado at the line.
The battle rages on behind. With 2km to go, the situation is:
9”
15”
13”
27”
Schleck
--->
Ricco Gr.
--->
Ponzi
--->
Sella
---> Denifl Gr.
Denifl and Ghisalberti have managed to stay ahead of the peleton thus far. Pozzovivo puts in an effort on the front to attempt to bring Schleck back but he just can’t manage it.
Under the 1km to go banner, Ricco pulls immensely hard on the front as everyone pass Sergent, who was dropped from the break. Ricco just hasn’t got anything left to give, however, and Ginanni comes around him to try to minimise the time lost for his captain.
Schleck comes in as 9th place, 3’15” behind Quinziato, but more importantly, 9” ahead of Ricco and Pozzovivo. It isn’t a huge time gain, but it is a sign that Ricco is mortal.
Just as importantly, Sella comes through exactly a minute behind Schleck, 51” down on Ricco’s time. If Schleck has given up on the top step of the podium, he has certainly helped solidify his second place. Pozzovivo will also be pleased with this result, as it puts him only 19” behind Sella on GC.
Denifl, Ghisalberti and a late-attacking Ulissi come through 1’25” behind Schleck, and they are 29” ahead of the peleton containing the other major GC riders. This was a smart move by Denifl because it puts him 5th in GC, as well as into the lead in the best young rider competition. It is also worth noting that Vespa have taken the lead in the team competition.
