Crescenzo D'Amore, 4th yesterday, is wide away today as he takes the opening intermediate sprint ahead of Slipstream's Tyler Farrar. Another strong Designa rider yesterday, 2nd Overall Bobbie Traksel, obviously does not rate his hopes today as he set the pace for the peleton early on.
By the top of the 1st climb, 4 men were clear, with Ghader Mizbani (Marco Polo) being the rider crossing 4th over the top.
Ortega looks like he wants to take the KoM jersey over from his teammate but the bad news for them was that Laurent Lefevre managed to catch up the 4 riders, with Eduardo Gonzalo. Lefevre already has 6 KoM points from yesterday. Ben Swift and Brad Armstrong also catch the lead group at the foot of the 2nd KoM climb, but are soon dropped. Behind them are Nippo's Nelson, followed by Rovny, Riblon and Hutchings, with a duo of Daniel Lloyd and Christopher Sutton also infront of the peleton.
Ortega takes the 2nd KoM sprint ahead of Mizbani and Gonzalo, Lefevre didnt seem too bothered about taking any. Further down the course, the first sprinters have been dropped and our 2 minutes behind the peleton. The group includes D'Amore, Brown, Chavanel, Manan and Dekkers.
The peleton is unoprganised though, and 3 riders manage to ride away.
Scheirlinckx and Hansen (Tinkoff) plus Lewis (SouthAus).
At the foot of the 3rd and toughest climb, Ivan Rovny manages to make it across to the leaders, the other 3 riders would begin falling behind now once the climb gets going.
The peleton reach the 3rd climb and Landbouwkredit's Proni launches the first of many attacks. Of the attacks only Glomser, Proni and Scheirlinckx make theirs stick, for a while at least.
Up front Lefevre leaps away unapposed to take the full KoM points to close the gap on Ortega who does not take many.
Hendersen is dropped! As are practically all of the other sprinters including Casper, Traksel, van Heeswijk and the rest. The only top 10 rider left in the peleton is Fabian Wegmann. Tinkoff will need to chase the break down though if they want Wegmann in Orange.
Une Orbitel hit the front to chase down Scheirlinckx, Proni and Glomser, Ben Swift is also with them having tried and failed to get into the lead breakaway group. They are caught and HealthNet's Moldovan rider, Sambris tries an attack which is also chased down by Une Orbitel.
Lefevre takes the next mountain points, with Ortega only crossing 6th and Danish rider Michael Reihs takes the intermediate sprint. Could Reihs win today's stage? With 30km to go, the peleton are 3'40 behind the 7 with Hutchings and Riblon soon to be caught as they have just 40 seconds on the pack.
They are caught with 19km to go but the lead group still has a huge lead of 3'28. Reihs takes the final KoM points as Hendersen and Van Heeswijk are dropped from the 2nd peleton.
The break is going to make it, and the weakest sprinter, Ghader Mizbani is forced to lead out.
Reihs makes his move with 1km to go:
And....
Bezt Zberg wins the peleton's sprint for 8th and Hendersen loses over 6 minutes to the breakaway.
Mizbani and Lefevre will remain outside the top 50 overall having lost time on Stage 1, but their 5 companions now lead the way in the Tour Down Under.
