(Note to Carrefour: Your jersey is not used for this stage, because the files were not correctly named. I'll change it myself now, so they work for the next stage)
Today's stage is a bumpy one of its kind, and it's therefore perfect to see if any of the crash victims from yesterday is still suffering.
The stage ends in an uphill sprint and therefore seems perfect for riders like Paolo Bettini -- riders, who are good at going uphill and good at sprinting
9 riders broke away early, but they were splitted as soon as they hit the hills: E3 - Capecchi and Hulsmann; E2 - Lancaster, Ulissi, Mangel and Marichal; E1 - Boom, Le Mevel and Van Goolen.
Nothing in particular happened on the stage. The hills only made the "expected" riders fall off, and yes, Mark Cavendish was of course the first rider to give up. The hills had, however, made many teams lose one, two, three or even four riders, meaning that it was more difficult for the peloton to cooperate. However, Carlsberg seemed to control the break perfectly well, and with 60 km to go the gap was down to 4'43 minutes. As the two first breaks got caught it became clear that Carlsberg were the only team interested in working at the front, and they also meant they ran out of energy. The gap stopped decreasing, and instead it started increasing.
With just 20 km to go, the gap had increased to 2'49, and it seemed very unlikely that the peloton would catch the breakaway. And since the three breakaway riders all only were 33 seconds behind in the GC it would also mean the end to Carlsberg's Maglia Rosa.
With 9 km to go, the gap was 2'54, and there was no doubt that it was up to the breakaway. The winner would get both the leader's jersey and a stage victory - here we are with 3 km to go.
Boom is in front, Le Mevel on his left, and with Van Goolen just behind him. With 1 km to go, Le Mevel is leading and it looks like Boom has run out of energy. Van Goolen seems to be out, though!
But Boom gets back! And he takes the victory for the Virgin team! And, as you can see, the peloton is far behind. This means Boom will also take the Maglia Rosa. What a day for him.
Bettini wins the bunch sprint ahead of Corioni. Corioni loses his leader's jersey, but keeps his sprinter's jersey.
