Today a hard to predict stage. Several hills until the final and a short cobbled section. It could end in a sprint finish, in a breakaway, in late attacks on the hilly ground or maybe even splits on the pavement.
The time trialist will need to hold the peloton together and probably hope for some help by the sprinter teams.
4 riders again in the breakaway. Sörensen Ghyllebert Ista Nechita
Cal Giant with an interesting move here. By sending a rider in the group they will be able to "relax" a bit and just reacting with Koren and Haedo instead of acting in the peloton.
Similar situation like always. Rothaus doing the most for Vantomme as also Boom is again involved in the pace working. Also Trilux is seen today as Haussler is in the yellow jersey. Bpost and Volkswagen are also supporting like on the previous days.
The first KoM was missed but unsurprisingly Team WWE is still doing strong there and so Sörensen takes the maximum points ahead of Ista and Ghyllebert.
With 100km left Trilux is accelerating. The group has an advance of more than 7min and shouldn`t be underestimated.
Sörensen also takes the 2nd KoM ahead of Ghyllebert and Ista. This moves him into the KoM jersey tomorrow. 3 different KoM leaders on 3 days but all from Team WWE. Ghyllebert and Tankink with the same amount, so we might still see some interesting battles there on the next stages.
Seeing that team leader Rolland has big problems after his crash the team decides to try something different. Sütterlin attacks with 65km to go. The group is down to 5min now.
Most active team definitely to Team WWE. Sörensen also takes the intermediate sprint followed by Ghyllebert and Ista again.
More attacks in the peloton. Stamsnijder and Kwok, who already was active yesterday. But after joining Sütterlin the trio is not able to get a real gap to the fast peloton and so are caught later again.
The cobbles haven`t been very selective but obviously some riders got at least a bit exhausted and couldn`t hang on in the following hilly terrain.
Biggest names falling back are Schädlich, Ortega and even further behind poor Rolland, who really suffers today.
Therefore we see some attacks, who now join the breakaway.
It`s one of the strong cobbled Bpost team. Elijzen is a bit ahead of the peloton now hoping to improve his chances for a top overall result.
This leads to a 18 rider group ahead of the 56 rider peloton including all big time trialists and also the yellow jersey by Haussler.
But no Rothaus rider left. Most pure sprinters including Haedo, Napolitano, Vantomme and Mohs are in the peloton and Lars Boom and Martin Velits are waiting for him and fall back from the leading group with just 7km to go!
The group ahead has no real team to make the pace in the final without any sprinter team left and so the pace isn`t that high, while Boom and Velits power behind to bring the groups together again.
At the moment 23 riders are in front including Haussler, Breschel, Bonnet, Elijzen, Kluge. 31s later 5 riders are following with Bauer, Koren, Vandborg, Meersman and Kozontchuk. So very good timetrialists here. Another 28s later the peloton led by Rothaus with Boom, Vantomme, Croket and Haedo, while Mohs, Dekkers or the white jersey by McCarthy are another 50s behind.
In the sprint of the first 23 one rider had no problems at all to win the sprint. Heinrich Haussler takes his 2nd consecutive win in Denmark. Several bike lengths later it`s Bonnet coming over the line 2nd and takes very important bonus seconds in the fight for the overall win while Matti Breschel comes in 3rd after a strong sprint.
The next riders like Vanspeybrouck or Flügel show how less sprinters have been left in the group.
But somehow the first group totally messed it up and so in the long sprint all groups came together again and there aren`t time gaps today. Even riders like Schädlich and Ortega are back in the fight for the overall win now. Crazy final today. Happy end for Rothaus, CalGiant and Meiji. Mixed feelings probably for Volkswagen as Reus was in front but the stronger time trialist Schädlich also came back today.
