Time to get things rolling down here in the desert. Today's stage is an easy flat story for a major part, but we'll probably see some attacks on the hills near the end.
It's hard to pick a name for the stage win, but the bookmarker favourites are such big names as Rohregger, Alizadeh and Martinez.
Not a single cloud in sight and painfully hot as the 61 riders slowly ride out from the start of this opening day with Carl Naibo and Alexander Schrangl at the head of the relatively small peloton.
The first part of the stage turns out in an unexpected way. By the time we start closing in on the first intermediate sprint of the day, we still haven't seen a single attack - 40 km into the stage!
The sprinters make sure to take maximum profit out of the strange situation, and Oleksandr Polivoda wins the sprint for the six points in a close fight against Manuel Belletti and Eric Baumann.
At the second intermediate sprint a little while later, Polivoda proves to be the fastest once again - adding another six points to his provisional lead in the points classification. Vahid Ghafari impressively tops Francesco Chicchi for second place.
With 55 km left to go, Alexis Gougeard thinks "better late than never" and attacks. Alexey Lutsenko jumps along with the Frenchman.
A few kms later, they're joined by a trio including Chun Kai Feng, Ying Hon Yeung and Danilo Di Luca.
The peloton, controlled by Air Kenya and Privatbank, don't see the escapees as any danger and the gap balloons out to 3'30 in just 10 km.
Lutsenko easily guns down Di Luca and Gougeard to win the third and last intermediate sprint of the day a couple of kilometers later. Neither of the Armavia guys even bothers to try stealing any bonifications.
Back in the main field, things start to get a little nervous as the gap goes up to four minutes with no more than 30 km left to race. Privatbank and Air Kenya really panics and even sends up Mestre and Ndbri to help chasing!
The day's first serious move is soon made, when Mohamed Shawal Anuar Aziz puts in a little dig on the short, uncategorized climb, 23 km from the finish.
Alizadeh counters and bridges across, but then refuses to help Aziz in the descent - causing them to fall back into the field again. The attack thus only accomplishes one thing: dropping Polivoda and Belletti.
After a short, quick downhill, we're back down on the flat again - and Nariyuki Masuda is the next captain to attack. The leaders are 2'30 ahead.
The lead group's advantage decreases to no more than a minute on the road leading to the foot of the final climb, and Yeung decides it's time to leave his companions as soon as the percentage starts to go up. Gougeard follows.
Masuda soon catches up with the rest of the breakaway, and starts pursuing the two leaders. The peloton is more or less upon them however, with Carl Naibo setting a high pace for his captain, Rohregger.
The peloton catches up with the leaders just a kilometer later, but Gougeard hasn't given up and attacks again, pulling a whole line of riders with him - including all of his former breakaway companions.
Gougeard's attack turns out to be more or less a leadout. After 200m, he cracks and sits up, and Anuar Aziz pounces clear instead! Tarik Chaoufi covers it, together with Naibo, and surprisingly not Rohregger.
Anuar Aziz blows both of them off his wheel and goes over the top of the climb alone, securing the KoM jersey for tomorrow.
Naibo is joined by Feng and Masuda in the final meters of the climb, and the trio passes over the top around 15 seconds behind Anuar Aziz.
Chaoufi is the next to reach the summit, after dropping back to team captain Yasmani Martinez, who has distanced the rest of the field with a small attack.
15s
30s
12s
Anuar Aziz
--->
Feng
--->
Chaoufi
--->
Peloton
Naibo
Martinez
Masuda
Feng, Naibo and Masuda catches Anuar Aziz on the way down to the next climb, and then fails to continue the cooperation. Just seconds later, they're back in the peloton again.
A kilometer and a half later, we hit the day's final climb. And guess who goes again - Anuar Aziz!
Lutsenko and Di Luca are both somehow still fresh enough to respond, together with Chaoufi and Mykhailo Kononenko.
A pretty big gap opens up, and some riders who misses the initial attack feels the need to cross the junction. A second wave of attacks is led by Alizadeh, who takes his team mate Jiriakov, Martinez and Feng for company.
The attack finds good speed quickly, and they catch up with the earlier escapees after just a few hundred meters.
Meanwhile at the front - Lutsenko attacks!
Di Luca is the only one who realises the danger, and the two quickly gains half a minute on the rest. How can they still have this kind of energy?
5s
28s
30s
Lutsenko
--->
Di Luca
--->
Gr. Anuar Aziz, Alizadeh
--->
Peloton
In the short descent down towards the finish, Lutsenko pushes Di Luca to his limit and the gap between them grows. Under the kilometer kite, it's 10 seconds!
The gap grows even more in the final kilometer, and Lutsenko can raise his arms in celebration early! The stage win is well deserved his almost inhuman performance today. You don't see a rider from the long breakaway dropping the everyone on the final climb very often!
Surely a pleasant surprise for MTN, who'll now get the chance to defend the jersey during the upcoming tough stages. There's a good chance they might keep it all the way to stage 4, where it's definitely going off though.
Di Luca gets caught by the other attackers in the end, but stays in front of all of them to take second place and 12 bonus seconds.
Kononenko wins the sprint for third and the last chunk of boni seconds. The only man in this group who might be disappointed with the day is Anuar Aziz, as he knows he was probably the strongest rider today. KoM jersey and a 7th place is nothing to sniff at, but it's not comparable to a stage win.
The big winners in the group are Martinez, Alizadeh and Jiriakov. There's a clear gap back to the peloton, which means that they gain time on all the other overall contenders today.
Edwin Parra Bustamante tried to make the junction across to the group in front with an attack in the descent, but never really got close and barely hangs on to take 10th place today, just ahead of Ghafari. The clock stops at 1'06 to Lutsenko, and 44 seconds to the escape group.
Probably not the start Rohregger, Ndbri, Rodas and the other favourites in this field wanted, but not much to do for them. They weren't paying attention, and therefore they have to pay the price.
