Maybe the hardest stage of this years Tour of Luxembourg. Especially the 3 laps on the final circuit with some steep climbs should be perfect for deciding attacks.
It will be interesting to see how the 11 breakaway rider perform today. Can someone stay with the favourites? Some of them are surely not the weakest puncheurs.
Lots of early attacks. No question that many teams want to give it another try after yesterdays success.
In the end 13 riders are obviously allowed to go.
Yesterdays unlucky riders, who obviously wanted to get some time to go for a break:
Sagan
Casar
As also 11 more riders with some decent puncheurs within:
Voeckler
Roijackkers
Parra Bustamante, Rodas
Kinney
Shpilevski
Quinziato
Maaskant, Dumoulin
Borges
Duyn
Interesting to see that most of the race favourites teams have a guy in the break.
So it`s totally up to Rothaus to control the peloton. Koep, Kunitski, Van Heerden and also co-leader Ben Hermans have to work.
With 152km to go and a gap of 2min Aramendia decides to bridge the gap and attacks.
Kinney takes the first KoM ahead of Quinziato and Voeckler, while Casar, Voeckler and Quinziato take the 2nd one. Wo will collect most points today? Lots of KoM sprints during the stage and we will surely see a new KoM leader after this stage.
With 100km to go and a gap of 7min Rothaus accelerates behind. Especially when Hermans moves to the front several riders start to struggle.
3rd KoM and this time Shpilevski takes it ahead of Casar and Rodas. The Frenchman taking most points so far surely aiming the KoM jersey after not having a big chance for a high GC finish.
Due to the high pace several riders lose contact. Best placed is a Rothaus rider surprisingly. Yesterdays 4th Passeron falls back due to bad positioning. He was one of the better puncheurs in yesterdays group, so this comes unexpected.
But also other leaders in here. Bad news for Bpost as their leader Vanendert leads this group now and also Trilux`s Smukulis in there.
More bad news for Rothaus. Kunitski puncheurs and so an important rider is missing them now.
And still not ending to bring bad news. This time for Proximus. Their leader Ben Nasser crashes.
Unlucky for these riders as RedBull and Bpost join Rothaus doing the pace with 80km to go and higher the pace. Obviously Bpost goes all-in for Gautier now seeing that the Vanendert group is already 2min behind.
There Proximus is doing the pace after sending all the helpers back to Ben Nasser. But the gap is not becoming smaller, actually it even widens.
Voeckler takes the next KoM ahead of Kinney and Sagan. Obviously the two Frenchman fight for the jersey today.
Weird tactic by Rothaus. It seems like Velits is the single team leader now as Hermans and Boom are doing the pace now.
This is very bad news for the breakaway as these two power horses really push the peloton now.
Still two riders decide to attack.
Bono and McCarthy try their luck with 48km to go.
More weird tactics. Kim Kirchen is doing the pace for Jayco RedBull. Also here Jelloul obviously got the new leader role.
Also Pellizotti is seen at the front although Sagan is still in the group. Obviously Di Maggio plans something.
But at first it is Sanchez with a strong attack with 32km to go and 2min to the break.
This splits the group another time. Hopman, Mazur and Barta all lose contact now. Obviously the GC will be mixed a lot today.
No chance for Sanchez. Boom and Hermans bring him back again. At least Velits is performing good for them justifying the tactic.
But immediately Sanchez attacks again pulling Claeys with him.
Voeckler also takes the next points and seems to take the jersey today.
Again they are all brought back. But also the yellow jersey by Velits is not in the first rows after the first of 3 final hills.
Ahead it`s Sagan deciding to go solo with a strong attack.
20km and just 1min to the favourite group.
McCarthy with another attack. (Ignore the Proximus group, lapped riders)
This time some of the very best follow. Sanchez, Di Maggio, Claeys and Ginanni.
Just 18km to go and it`s just Sagan in front now.
On top of the 2nd hill Velits loses contact. All the work was useless obviously.
Also Elijzen, Duenas, Haavardsholm or Jelloul lose contact. Yesterdays effort was too hard obviously.
But also Cyclevox leader Konovalovas can`t follow. This is far more surprising.
Seeing that the favourites ahead are too dangerous Roche, Ignatiev and Mollema decide to attack.
Meanwhile Velits fights back to the big group.
But the big favourites are doing serious now. They really accelerate another time and split the next group a lot.
Velits again falls back and this time he gets support by Ben Hermans.
With 5km to go it`S Ginanni in first position ahead of Claeys and Di Maggio.
Sanchez and Roche are not far behind, while the peloton seems to lazy down things after Rothaus stopped the pace.
And it becomes even worse for them. Also Boom waits for Velits trying to bring him back.
Both leaders looked really strong today but pull back their own ambitions for Velits. (Imagine me screaming really loud now)
Ginanni can hold the small gap and wins todays stage.
But Claeys and Di Maggio are counted in the same time.
Roche and Sanchez lose 32s today but improving a lot in the rankings.
After Pinaeu at 49s it`s Ignatiev leading the next group with +1'12 also including Mollema, Voeckler, Rovny and Sagan.
Monfort brings the big group over the line. They are already 1'38 back.
Disaster for RedBull. Kirchen leads the next group with 2'35 with Veloso, Cherel and Jelloul.
Also Hermans and Boom are in this group.
Bad day for these two teams.
Velits will lsoe the jersey for sure. He loses another 1'10 to the group ahead. 3'45 to the stage winner. What a disastrous day for some teams today.
Ginanni takes the new lead as all of yesterdays break were dropped today.
