Two sprinters team Webeffect and Carmuese made sure of a sprint finish yesterday, but today is a little bit more complicated with a couple of 3rd category climb to contend with. We also have the backdrop of tommorows long team time trial to think about.
It is a very active start to the day with an early break of 13: Lars Ytting Bak Matej Mugerli Maxime Bouet Danilo Di Luca David Loosli Tom Leezer Philip Deignan Bradley Wiggins Sebastian Lang Thomas Frei Mauro Facci Aleksej Kunshin Jakub Danacik
Despite rarely looking like he will take a stage win from a sprint it is Webeffect again who are working for Óscar Avelino and Emanuele Sella is being used to chase.
The man currently in the GC top five pulls it all back together only for most of the former breakaways to try again. Diegnan, Di Luca, Danacek, Kunshin, Leezer go joined by two new names William Germán RodrÃguez Parra and Ethan Weiss
These seven are clear for the first sprint taken by Diegnan over Danacek and Kunshin.
These seven are joined by five more:
Bouet and Mugerli from before are here with Antonio Colom Mas, Brent Bookwalter and Dominique Cornu
This makes twelve in the break and it loks like they will be allowed to get away to form the break of the day. However Reinhardt Janse van Rensburg, Dimitri Champion and Matea Kvasina now look to bridge.
There is discussing in the pack and Carmuese don't like this, feeling there is just a few too many useful roulers to allow this to stay clear. They keep the break to within 70 seconds.
With the help of a few Proximus Trek and Bacardi riders once again the break is neutralised.
Things are still together then when we go up our first 3rd category climb and Weiss decides to go for the points.
It's a bit of a strange move, first in that no one else seems interested and second that of all people it is Weiss who goes for it. The 22 year old American looks the pure climbers ability to do anything on major climbs so cannot really be considered a contender.
He slips back to the pack after the prime as well so it was a simply an attack for the points. On the second £rd category climb he does the same. Seeing as we are now close to 100km from home Tanel Kangert decides to use this chance to attack on the downhill.
The Estonian goes past Weiss who once again returns to the pack and continues solo. Steven Kruijswijk decides to bridge up to Kangert, meaning the pack has a two man breakaway to deal with.
It is pretty much a dream scenerio for the sprinters teams, the thing they have to watch though is that now we have two very good roulers clear and also they will face a scramble for those third place positions at the two sprints.
Óscar Avelino actually wins the sprint for third at the first. No-one else seemed interested here.
At 70km to go the gap is 5.30, meaning that it is going to be quite a hard chase. Still the sprinters probably help things by going hell for leather for the third sprint, this one has a more telling result as yesterdays stage winner and points jersey leader Michael Van Stayen adds two more points.
It's a bad time to crash and Wiggle's young Italian Teodoro Costagli named as a possible future Italian Grand Tour contender crashes.
The pack are in full chase mode here with Carmuese, Proximus Trek and Webeffect commiting numbers forward.
But Kangert and Kruijswijk are proving hard to catch with 40km to go they have 4.20 and it is still three minutes 10km later. But being as it is just two riders, eventually the energy runs out in the breakaways and with 10km to go they are back in the pack. We are going to get a sprint again today.
It is going to first be a battle of the trains and it is pink vs blue.
Two train establish themselves and it is the same personal again with Webeffect going with Sella, Rodrigues, Bontenackets and Avelino against Carmuese who have Cyrfs, Weylandt, Caethoven and Roelandts.
The battle now is for the wheels, most of the sprinters wisely choosing the Carmuese train but with 3.7km to go the Webeffect boys are slightly ahead.
On the back of Avelino's wheel we have Paride Grillo and Alejandro Valverde
On the Carmuese train we have Mark Cavendish Maximiliano Richeze Juan Pablo Forero Michael Van Stayen
and Dan Holloway
Weylandt digs deep for the Carmuese train and pulls Carmuese past the pink riders.
We can see yesterday runner up Tyler Farrar at the back with Nolan Hoffman
As Weylandt pulls off he goes to his left causing a bit of a block behind.
We can see that Cavendish, Forero and Richeze are clear with the others badly blocked here 2km out.
Seeing another stage going up in smoke Avelino desperately sprints to get back up to Richeze's wheel with Holloway and Farrar trying to follow him. Van Stayen takes a different approach backing his power to go to the far left.
Meanwhile up front Forero and Richeze have a great chance here and look to come around Cavendish and Roelandts.
Roelandts is waiting for the right moment and picks the 800m sign as his mark to go up to maximum speed. He didn't really accelerate that much yesterday, but no-one could come around him when he went either. We can see here that Forero and Richeze are level with him. Van Stayen is a couple of bike lengths back.
Forero cannot quite hold, but Richeze is matching Roelandts, Cavendish weaves to look for a gap with Avelino looking faster today now blocked. Van Stayen is moving fastest of all with Holloway coming into view.
300m left and Roelants looks like he has just about enough left in the tank. Van Stayen though has probably done enough to keep his green jersey.
Roelandts takes the stage win over an impressive Van Stayen who comes home second ahead of a late burst from Cavendish to snatch 3rd from Richeze.
Holloway cam up into the top five overtaking the once again not good enough Avelino. Forero is 7th and Valverde not really quick enough to take on these sprinters back in 8th. Madrazo still picks up some points by finishing in 13th, but the sprinters are beginning to pull away from him in the points competition.
Points
It's two stage wins apiece for Roelandts and Van Stayen, but Van Stayen gets to hold the points jersey through now until stage ten and with a ten point buffer could get it to the Pyreenees.
Mountains
It was a little bit disappointing to not see some one high up on the mountains competition not try and nab some easy points. Madrazo and Sella keep hold of the jersey then.
