The standout part of today's hilly stage is the uphill finish. Favourites for the stage are Van den Broeck, De la Fuente and Rujano.
And the breakaway is as follows:
Vantornout
Brutt
Anacona
Landa
Reis
Zirbel
Saramotins
Martins
Nordhaug
Brandle
Closely contested at the first intermediate sprint
1
Vantornout
2
Brutt
3
Saramotins
And the same 3 lead the battle at the 2nd sprint
1
Saramotins
2
Vantornout
3
Brutt
At the first KoM, its yesterday's unlucky rider Nordhaug who takes full points
1
Nordhaug
10
2
Vantornout
8
3
Brutt
6
4
Reis
4
5
Anacona
2
But its Brutt, Vantornout and Saramotins who again take the bonus seconds and points at the 3rd sprint.
1
Vantornout
2
Saramotins
3
Brutt
In the peloton, Seeldraeyers has made a few attempts to try to break clear - neither particularly successful
There has been a split in the peloton, reducing the pack down to 64. No team leaders are missing, but a few teams are missing useful domestiques. Pokerstars only have 3 riders left in the peloton for example. Alognside team leader Rujano is Clement and Van Goolen. Both involved in chasing the break.
26km to go and the break leads by 2'20. Incidentally Martins has been dropped by the break and also caught by the peloton.
By 20km to go, that gap is reduced to 1'45 - but disaster! Rujano punctures.
Now Van Goolen and Clement have more work to do, to bring Rujano back.
The break keep on fighting up front with the peloton missing a bit of firepire lost from Pokerstars. 10km to go, the gap still over a minute at 1'20 - and the break begins to attack each other.
It's not until 6km to go that Rujano makes contact with the peloton. Bad timing as we just had a short stretch of wider road where it would have been easier to move up the peloton.
Up front, Reis has a small advantage on Brutt, Anacona and Brandle - with a further 30 seconds to Nordhaug, Saramotins, Zirbel, Landa and Vantornout.
3.5km to go, and the gap to the peloton has shot back up to 2 minutes. Breakway victory today then.
And now with 2km to go, we are climbing. Can Reis hold on to his lead?
He can't. Brutt and Brandle move up to challenge him with 1km to go.
But look at Nordhaug! The Norwegian is flying across the gap, and makes contact with the back of this group, passing Anacona.
In the peloton, it is Bianchi who are looking very strong with De la Fuente, Schwab and Gil all up there. The CSC riders are Rodas and Zaballa - so not Anton - while Van den Broeck is not one of those 3 Pirelli riders either.
Brandle moves into the lead, passing Brutt, but Nordhaug is closing - and Vantornout is also homing in.
And in the peloton, De la Fuente now has a gap! That is Roux and Ratiy chasing behind him.
Lars Petter Nordhaug wins the stage! That will make up for yesterday's crash for sure.
Brutt manages to move back ahead of Brandle to take 2nd, both just holding off Vantornout. Taking into account the time bonuses here and earlier in the stage, Pavel Brutt becomes the new race leader - 4 seconds ahead of Vantornout.
Reis and Anacona take 5th and 6th, 19 seconds down, while Landa, Zirbel and Saramotins are 48 seconds down - and they have been joined by a flying De la Fuente!
Roux, Gil and Schwab finish at 1'12.
Ratiy, Niemiec, Lloret and Zaballa are 1'29 down.
Then finishign at 1'46 is the main peloton group. Augustyn is there, as are Anton, Nicacio and Van den Broeck - 3 dissapointing performances.
There seems to be a gap before Maisto finishes but it is not given. That is good news for Rujano who seems to have given up and not bothered on this climb. Finishing behind race leader Van Poppel and also some way behind his two teammates.
So not a great stage for most GC riders - the notable exception being Bianchi who stormed the final climb. De la Fuente, Schwab, Gil and Lloret all gaining some time on their rivals, while Vantornout almost took the race lead! You can see why they lead the Continental standings!
