Lo Cicero Avelino Lavoine
are listed as favourites for today’s stage, but neither of them can climb very well, meaning this could be a golden opportunity for wild card team Saab, and their Norwegian God of Thunder, Hushovd
France greets the riders with a bit better weather than yesterday morning, at least it isn’t raining. Hopefully it won’t start to rain, but you’ll never know, and it looks like those clouds could open up at any moment.
5 kilometers before today’s first KoM prize, Giling
launches an attack. He’s followed by Vangheel Hampton
Vangheel Giling
sprint for the mountain points on offer, and leaves Hampton
in the dust.
Lots of attacks follow next, but in the end, with 143 kilometers left, it looks like the early breakaway has settled. It’s 8 riders who made the cut, they’re: Vangheel Giling Lelay Kvasina Muravjev Bagdonas & Butterfield Hampton
Both Pearl Adidas and Café de Colombia missed out on the breakaway, and De Haes Rodriguez Parra
try to do something about that, and attack from the peloton.
They make the catch with 133 kilometers left, meaning there’s 10 riders in the breakaway now, and they’ve got a lead of 3’50 down to the peloton.
It looks like the KoM prizes will be hotly contested by the breakaway today. Muravjev inches De Haes for the 6 points on offer at the 2nd “mountain top” of the day. De Haes takes 4 points, while Giling takes 2.
The breakaway is about to start on the first real difficulty of the day. Their gap is 6’40 down to the peloton, with 78 kilometers left of racing. The peloton is led by Webeffect, who will probably try to slow down the pace on the climb itself, to save Avelino’s
energy.
Serpa
and Festina didn’t like the slow pace from Webeffect it seems, and Serpa takes the lead back in the peloton, hammering the pace on the final 7 kilometers of the climb. A strange tactic from Festina, as Lavoine really isn’t a better climber than Avelino. Serpa has really stretched the peloton, and he has put his leader Contador in troubles if the peloton splits, as Contador is at the very back of the peloton.
Lelay
manages to outsprint Vangheel
on the last meters, to take the 10 points on offer on today’s penultimate climb. Muravjev
takes third on the climb, meaning the polkadot will be between Muravjev, Vangheel and Lelay on the last climb of the day.
Giling
is interested in the 6 bonus seconds with 58 kilometers left, and he wins the sprint ahead of Muravjev
And as we start the final climb of the day, 4 riders have to let the 6 others go. The survivors are Lelay Kvasina Vangheel Giling Muravjev De Haes
Their gap is 5’10, and with lots of descending left, they stand a fair chance of the stage win, especially if the peloton wants to keep the speed low on this climb.
But the peloton has no intentions going slow on the final climb. Fedrigo
puts the hammer down on the narrow roads, and it immediately splits! Lo Cicero
is surprisingly in the front group, the same is his leader, Kashechkin. The same goes for race leader Spilak
He has also managed to find a spot in the front group, but all the other favourites are missing. Meaning there will be some drama on the final 50 kilometers of the stage!
Lelay
takes the final climb aswell, giving him 10 more points, which means he has 20 points in total. It's hard to say if it's enough for the polkadot though, as Muravjev also ends the day on 20 points in the competition for the polkadot.
Fedrigo
kept the pace for the whole climb, meaning we only have 30 riders in the first group of the “peloton.” Spilak is there, Kashechkin is there and Phinney also just managed to make contact before going into the descent. That’s the only overall contenders we’ve got in the first group. Speaking of sprinters, only Hushovd Lo Cicero
managed to hold on.
Going over the top, there’s more drama! Lo Cicero
punctures, and he probably has to forget about his ambitions of winning the stage. But it’s behind Lo Cicero the real drama appears. Kashechkin
has been told to wait for Avelino and 3 other team mates, who is a minute behind the group Kashechkin sat in before he waited for Avelino. That’s strange tactic from Webeffect, clearly playing everything on a stage win for Avelino today.
Lo Cicero’s
puncture means he drops to the next group, desperately led by Pendleton’s, who has Menchov
in this group. But it could have been far worse for Pendleton’s, they’re actually sitting pretty good, as Menchov is the only GC contender in this group, consisting of 16 riders.
Then follows a group of 20 riders, where Hagen Dekker Rodriguez Amador
are some of the riders chasing for dear life to bridge the gap to race leader Spilak’s group.
Where’s the peloton you might ask? And where’s the other GC contenders? Well, they’re having a tough time. Vesuvio Festina
have started to chase, but they’re more than 8 minutes behind the breakaway at the top of the final climb, and 4 minutes behind Spilak’s group. Have they blown their overall chances on this innocent-looking flat stage?
Kashechkin
puts in a great effort, and brings Avelino back to the group where Hushovd sits. If the groups behind can't catch them on the final 40 kilometers, it looks like a great chance for both of them to get a stage win.
Up at the very front, Bagdonas
has managed to catch the 6 front runners, meaning they’re 7 up front. And they stand a great chance at victory now, with 4 minutes down to Spilak’s group, and there's only 35 kilometers left for them.
Avelino
must be feeling great today, as Kashechkin continues to push the pace in E2. They’ve only got 2’40 up to the breakaway with 30 kilometers left. The current situation is like this:
E1 --> 2’40 to E2 --> 1’35 to E3, which is Menchov’s group --> 1’05 to E4, which is Dekker’s and Amador’s group --> 1’30 to the peloton. It means the peloton is chasing almost 7 minutes behind the front 7, and still 4 minutes behind race leader Spilak’s group.
The peloton seems to have resigned with 25 kilometers left, but there’s apparently time for another split inside the peloton. 41 riders are on the wrong side, and Plaza Uran
are 2 of the riders on the wrong side. They can really forget about a good overall placing now, as they quickly loose 3 minutes to a resigned peloton, and they’re 9 minutes behind the front of the race.
19 kilometers to go for the brave riders in front, and they still hold a lead of 2’10 back to E2. They stand a great chance at the stage win now, but there won’t be room for tactical play, as it’s a determined chase behind them.
Menchov’s
group manages to catch E2, meaning it’s 46 riders chasing the front 7. It also means Lavoine Lo Cicero
might be able to sprint for the win, if they’re able to catch the breakaway.
Hagen Dekker Rodriguez
still chase desperately behind, with 13 kilometers left, they’re 3 minutes behind the breakaway, and 1’40 behind the peloton. It's looking more and more like last year's winner, Spilak, will be given a head start to his overall campaign here on stage 3.
The front 7 are showing a stunning display here, with only 7 kilometers left, they’ve been able to extend their gap back to the chasers. Their gap is 1’30, and it looks like they all are given an opportunity to shine today.
Vangheel
is forced to lead out the sprint with 2500 meters left. He has Kvasina Lelay
in his slipstream.
Lelay makes his move with 1300 meters left Kvasina
still hangs on to Vangheel’s rear wheel.
800 meters left, and Kvasina makes his final acceleration, but is it enough to catch Lelay?
Back in Dekker’s group, Dekker Hagen
started their sprints as soon as possible, and they’re rewarded for that, they make contact with the peloton, meaning they’ll most likely not loose any time to Spilak and the other overall contenders in this group.
Up front, Lelay wins! A great day for him, taking both the stage and the joint lead in the polkadot competition. Kvasina sprints home in 2nd place, while Vangheel holds on for 3rd.
Muravjev takes 4th. De Haes Giling Bagdonas
follow close. A great effort by them all, never letting the peloton catching them.
Back in the peloton, Vastaranta wins the sprint for 8th, ahead of Machado Lo Cicero
5 minutes behind the stage winner, Nelson leads home Contador & Serpa Arroyo Iglinski Löfkvist Pedraza & Hugenhaben Taaramäe
and other riders. It must hurt to know that a bad position going into the final climb of the day most likely costed them a good overall placing.
It’s a sad day for Jack Wolfskin and their leader, Plaza. They’re almost 10 minutes behind stage winner Lelay, and he has definitely lost his opportunity for a top 10 overall. The same can be said about Uran
who's also in the group.
