Today’s stage is a bit of an oddity. Constantly up and down for 211km with the last 30km being almost totally flat. There are three king of the mountain primes on offer today, but none are particularly hard. The toughest climb is in the Mt. Wood Community Park, our last climb of the day, but even that is only 3.3km long with a 5% average. Because of this the favourites are all the sprinters, though many are whispering of the possibility of a break, now that time gaps have opened up between everyone.
Our first attack comes form a familiar name – Emilien Viennet. Viennet was in the break on stages 1 and 3 and held the mountain jersey for one day after the third stage. He is only 2 points behind our KOM leader Karagobek, so is this an attempt to grab hold of the jersey again before the next few totally flat stages?
No one goes with the French rouleur, but nor is he given much lee-way by the peloton. WWE, Hollister and Proximus all keep a tight rein on him and they aren’t allowing more than 50 seconds to open up to him.
With the sprint approaching, it becomes apparent why. All of the big sprinters are looking to score points, even Teruel, who had been working for Maksimov in the first few days until he missed the time limit. Now he is sprinting for himself. Our green jersey Serebriakov leads the charge.
Viennet is caught on the run-in by the sprinters, who have opened up a nice gap back to the bunch. And it is Serebriakov who leads them over, ahead of Teruel and then Kip. This means that Serebriakov has extended his lead over Greipel to 13 points.
Viennet tries to get things going again but just can’t get a gap and so is dragged in by Hollister. And over the first climb, Owlshead Hill (1.9km long @ 4% average) there is no break. As such Monsalve leads things, with Ochoa Quintero in second and Hoste in third.
During the lumpy middle section 9 riders are dropped from the pack, which still is setting a decent pace. Amongst these riders are:
Fifth overall Soler
Eighth overall Navaro
Ninth overall Nicacio
Thirteenth overall Morizot
And expert climbing domestique Vasquez
Thankfully these guys all put in a good effort and the entire group gets back in to the bunch, but not without heart attacks for their managers.
At the front of the pack, meanwhile, there is finally an attack and it is another familiar name doing so today. It is Thomas Ziegler, who was in a solo break on stage 2.
This time the gap quickly goes out to two minutes and so it looks like Ziegler is in yet another solo break. He probably isn’t too happy about that, but most of the teams have big sprinters here who are looking for a stage win.
One of those teams is Hollister, who have been setting most of the pace with their super strong team today. The bumps in the road are constantly in the 8-10% region, with short and sharp descents before climbing up again. Add to that the fact that there are narrow roads and this is the perfect opportunity for splits to form in the peloton and split it does!
Hollister have succeeded in splitting the race into three groups mid way through the stage. In the second group are some big names: Sicard (2nd) Kessiakoff (6th) Sano (10th)
And in the third group are even more: Anton (5th) Soler (4th) Navarro (8th) Nicacio (9th)
The second and third groups come together about 1’35” back and work starts on the front of both groups. This is a good chance to get a full list of who is in the first peloton. They are:
Kiserlovski, Serebriakov, Martinez, Ochoa Quintero, Szmyd, Monsalve Kip, Hackecky, Tommersen, Shatskikh Greipel, Hoste, Mayo R. Feillu, Elissonde Teruel, Blanco Viviani, Insausti Manan De Fauw Jorgensen
That’s 22 riders in all, with Hollister having almost their entire team up here. All of the favourites for today’s expected sprint are here, though with this situation anything could happen. Far more important, however, is that of the top 20 riders on GC only 5 of them are in this front group – 4 of those ride for Hollister! The other one is Elissonde.
We get to the second sprint and the gap is still decent. Ziegler takes the maximum points, with Ochoa Qintero and Monsalve taking the points for second and third.
And the gap is as follows:
4’55”
1’43”
Ziegler
--->
Peloton 1
--->
Peloton 2
And the gaps are almost the same through the day’s third mountain prime, but the second peloton is now only 1’16” behind the first one. This time Szmyd leads over Hacecky for the points. Proximus have started to do some work to help Kip get to the line in the reduced group.
With 40km to go Ziegler crests the last little unclassified climb of the day, which peaks out at 10%. The gap is starting to really fall as Hollister keep the speed high. It has just come under 4 minutes.
The gap to the second group starts to grow quickly as fatigue sets in. Sicard is doing the lion’s share of the work himself, but he is getting help from Blanco (who had dropped back from the front group to help), Polito and today’s early aggressor Viennet. And then things get even worse for one particular rider caught back here as Beppu falls. Thankfully he has no ambitions today and he doesn’t appear to be injured, but you never know.
Hollister are still all over the front of the first peloton and with 24km to go they have Ziegler clearly in their sights for the first time since he got away.
Ziegler makes it to the sprint points, but the gap is already down to 56” as the sprinters duke it out behind. This time, getting some revenge, it is Greipel who takes second place ahead of Serebriakov. Their gap in the points comppetition is now back to 11 points. Kiserlovski also sprinted for the bonus seconds, though the way that this is starting to pan out you have to think that he may not need it. Either way, he didn’t get them.
Things are clearly tough behind as Sicard leads the second peloton through the sprint point 3’57” behind the first peloton. With 13km remaining Ziegler is caught by the charging train behind him. Shatskikh and Insausti are both dropped due to the high pace.
Szmyd and Monsalve keep pacing on the front with 2km to go. Everyone has been expecting Hollister to provide a lead-out so there is a fight for Serebriakov’s wheel. But Hollister fool them all and don’t lead out, instead with 1400m to go Serebriakov jumps out from behind his pacing teammates!
Kip misses the jump completely while Greipel is straight onto Serebriakov’s wheel.
Greipel launches around him and is looking strong, but Feillu kicks between the two big men!
And Romain Feillu takes a big sprint victory on this bitter-sweet day for Focused Cycling!
Greipel is good enough for second, ahead of Serebriakov. That means that there is no change in the point jersey competition between these two today. Manan shows that he likes the slightly tougher courses with a fourth place. Teruel is in fifth, adequately replacing his lead sprinter Maksimov. Kiserlovski sprints for sixth, ahead of Kip in seventh, Viviani in eighth, Martinez in ninth and De Fauw, who rounds out the top ten.
But all eyes are now on the second peloton, who are lead in by Kessiakoff, one of the biggest losers today. They come in 3’05” down, which is not the end of the world, particularly given that almost all of the GC contenders lost time today, but it does put Kiserlovski in a commanding position.
Looking at the jerseys, the biggest news today is obviously in GC. Kiserlovski’s lead extends to 3’08” over Sicard and 3’59” to Anton. Not only that but his team now occupy the top 3 places on GC, as well as 8th. The points jersey remains on the shoulders of Serebriakov and he remains 7 points ahead of Greipel. Karagobek maintains his mountain jersey, and should do so for a few more stages over the flatlands. Hollister extends their team competition lead and no threats gained time on Sicard in his competition... I mean the young rider’s jersey.
