We return back to the flat for one stage only and even then it isn’t completely flat. We have quite a lot of bumps out on this circuit but most of them are in the 3-4% range so shouldn’t hurt many legs. More importantly is the 3% slope to the finish line which should make the finish exciting.
The first attack today comes from Polito.
Four more riders attack after him: Strgar Hnik Dabrowski Young
They are all allowed to go away here as the GC teams rest up a bit. None of them are even close to being a threat on GC.
There are 6 mountain primes out on course today, each worth 5 points. However, the break don’t seem particularly interested through the first one as Young just rolls over ahead of Strgar and Hnik.
Over the two next mountain primes the break again shows no interest, leaving very little of interest occurring out on course. Dabrowski comes first in both of them with Strgar in second both times as well. The third place goes to Polito in the first of these two climbs and Hnik on the second. The gap is out to 6’10”.
Back in the peloton the pace is still pretty easy all up. A couple of teams start to work in the form of VW-Mapei, Prio-Porto and Hollister.
De Fauw falls in the pack but a couple of his teammates help him back. Could this hurt him when it comes to contesting the finish?
Finally at the fourth mountain prime someone shows some interest. Dabrowski adds to his total by attacking away. No one contests him so Strgar rolls across in second and Hnik in third.
The fifth mountain prime again sees Dabrowski attacking away. This time Strgar attacks to guarantee himself second. Both of them have decent point totals today. Young takes third.
And we reach the final mountain prime. Once again Dabrwoski takes it and once again Strgar takes second. Dabrowski will look back at the first mountain prime where he didn’t take any points and shake his head. If he had’ve won all the primes today he would have at least worn the mountain jersey for a day.
With 21km to go, as they cross this point, their lead is still at a solid 1’48”. This could be touch-and-go. And it is now that we learn why Dabrowski was conserving his energy – he makes sure that his previous attack sticks and he holds on to a 15” lead over his former companions.
And with 10km to go Dabrowski has 16” on the chasers and another 37” on the peloton.
The chase group catch up to Dabrowski and straight away Strgar launches an attack but the peloton are right on his back wheel. Still, you can’t blame him for giving it a go with 7km to the line.
With no winds to break up the sprints here three separate trains are set up. On the right Prio-Porto have a very strong train for Avelino. On the left Volkswagen have a train for Castaneda but they only have 3 riders rather than the 4 of Prio. In between these two are Hollister, who are desperately trying to bring Serebriakov up.
Gatto is on the wheel of Avelino and Mezgec sits behind him. Cooke is on Castaneda’s back wheel. Meanwhile, Hutarovich is fighting with Serebriakov to get the wheel of Aguilar. With 2.1km the two middle trains go to their last lead-out man, but Prio still have an extra man in front of Avelino.
Zabel increases the speed in the middle and Aguilar pulls Serebriakov to the left of the road, with Volkswagen having cut them off in the middle of the road. Santos opens up and is still leading Avelino, has the Prio train actually worked here? Gatto drops off their train, taking Mezgec with him.
With 1km to the line all three of the main sprinters here open up. Avelino is slightly ahead but Cooke is well positioned in the middle. Mezgec is recovering behind but is a long way back. How will this little slope affect things though?
And Mezgec surges up the middle! This finish is absolutely made for him!
And the Slovenian Luka Mezgec takes what will undoubtedly be one of the biggest wins of his career!
Brambilla came from absolutely nowhere to take 2nd, which is another superb result. Machado also came from nowhere, using the final slope to get a real advantage over the pure sprinters to take third place. Serebriakov is the first pure sprinter in fourth, with Avelino in fifth, Weylandt in sixth, Cooke in seventh, Santos in eighth and Fabbri and Hutarovich rounding out the top ten.
Sorry about the lack of exported results. A few riders were tailed off, but no one important. I have reconstructed the results from my screenshots but lower results will not be shown.
