Today’s stage is the second mountaintop finish, atop Mt. Seymour. The stage is fairly easy, especially compared to our previous mountain stage, so most riders will have full tanks by the time they get to the end of the stage. The final climb averages around 8% most of the way up with some sections easing off to about 5%. Towards the top, however, there is a brutal section in excess of 10%.
The first attack of the day comes from Vital. His team leaders have been a bit disappointing here and so he is clearly being given a freer reign.
Several more riders attack up to him: Kinoshita Keukeleire Vasquez Hasanovic Gottfried
Vasquez is a particularly interesting rider to be here. He is a great mountain goat, but he isn’t much good at anything else. He didn’t follow the attacks last time so he is in 30th place, 8’43” down on Kritskiy. This attack is likely just an attempt to go for the stage win but it could also see him move up the rankings, though even 20th place is a long way ahead of him.
There are some sprint points along the way but they are of little consequence given the huge GC gaps. Kinoshita rolls over the first one, with Hasanovic taking the second one. Back in the peloton Cisco and Tinkoff are sharing the pace. While Kritskiy clearly just wants his team to defend his jerseys, perhaps Caruso is feeling up to trying to take the stage today?
The only real points of interest in the next short flat section are Cooke falling and getting back in while Kinoshita takes the final sprint points. Tinkoff have started to do all the work and with 60km remaining the gap is at 6’53”. They are struggling a bit thanks to their rather young and weak team, which means that the gap isn’t coming down particularly quickly.
We hit the penultimate climb of the day, which is actually fairly hard for an uncategorised climb. It reaches a maximum of about 7% and is close to 4km long. The break have a lead of 5’48” now.
Back in the peloton clearly this hurts some legs as an autobus forms with 15 riders in it. They are all sprinters and Avelino sets the pace for the moment, wearing the green jersey on loan from our race leader.
And on the descent to our finishing climb we get the first serious attacks of the day: Lovkvist Alarcon Keizer
Clearly Alarcon doesn’t want a repeat of stage 4 where he was poorly placed, so he is looking to make up some time here. Unfortunately for these three Klimiankov keeps them under control and reels them back in.
Before the final climb begins there is a gentle rise of about 5km and it is here that Vasquez decides that he would go faster alone on this climb. Hasanovic is able to follow his pace, however, but the rest of the break just put their heads down and try to pace.
And remarkably it is this same spot where Taaramae chooses to attack out of the bunch! We haven’t even hit the final climb and already our second placed rider is on the attack!
And no one follows him! He forces a gap of about 20” without any trouble and the bunch starts to shred. Lovkvist and Keizer are the next to try a move, attempting to get up to our lone attacker.
Zakarin digs deep and manages to pull all three of them back. In the break there is a similar circumstance as Vital pulls Vasquez back. That won’t stop the South American, however, as he attacks again, and this time no one follows him. With 10.4km of climbing remaining he has a lead of 3’49”.
Now three familiar names jump out of the bunch. Lovkvist, Alarcon and Keizer attack. These were the three who had tried to get away on the descent earlier in the stage.
Popovych sees a chance here and tries to come up to them but the bunch sits in his wheel and he ultimately brings these three back. That doesn’t deter Alarcon however, as he attacks away alone. Devolder tries to go too but can’t build up enough speed to get to him.
Alarcon builds up a lead of 30” over the bunch, which is already reduced to just 35 riders. Clearly wishing to show that he can win this race, Taaramae launches an attack to try to bridge up. Kritskiy is about half way back in the peloton.
Popovych once again sees an opportunity and jumps on the back wheel of Taaramae. They start to prise out a small gap on the bunch.
Back in the bunch, Pozzovivo starts to pace. He needs to bring this back otherwise he risks losing a podium place – he is almost certainly going to lose time in the race of truth tomorrow. Kritskiy has now moved up the bunch a bit and is sitting on his shoulder. Pozzovivo absolutely destroys this group and it is now down to 15 riders. Some from our top 20 have been dropped: Hesjedal (11th) Briceno (14th) Agudelo (19th) Ghisalberti (20th)
Popovych and Taaramae bridge up to Alarcon as they pass the dropped Keukeleire. They have a 31” gap over the peloton now and this is looking quite promising.
Vasquez reaches the 5km to go mark and over his shoulder he can see the approaching bunch. The situation is as follows:
24"
51"
30"
Vasquez
--->
Chasers (3)
--->
Gr. Taaramae
--->
Peloton (14)
Pozzovivo seems to find another gear and he breaks clear of the rest of the group, with only Kritskiy capable of staying in his wheel. The Russian is very cleverly only taking a few turns here, because the Italian is a much better pure climber.
The 35” gap starts to narrow for these two and finally with 1.6km to go Kritskiy does the final bit of work to bring the group of Taaramae back. That might well be enough to defend his jersey, though he will have to hope that the mountains haven’t worn him out more than Taaramae, who can time trial just as well as he can.
At the same time as making this catch the three man remnants of the former break are caught as well, leaving only Vasquez out the front. He has a 25” advantage left with just over a kilometre to go.
Abal and Kiserlovski force themselves clear of the rest of the remnants of the group behind. Abal is once again showing some strength right at the end of the climb and will be hoping to minimise his time loss to Alarcon so that he can aim for a 5th place overall.
Vasquez has 22” with 700 metres left. He can see the line ahead of him and he must know that this would go down as a classic victory if he can just dig deep enough.
Alarcon is best placed at the front of the chasers and opens the sprint. Taaramae is just behind him.
Alarcon quickly fades. He is clearly exhausted after a long climb.
With 400 metres to go Popovych is moving the fastest. Vasquez just looks dead but he could still hold on.
And with just under 200 metres to go Popovych is on his shoulder.
And Popovych just edges it! You have to feel sorry for Vasquez, who just manages to hold second over Taaramae, who in turn takes some valuable bonus seconds.
Kritskiy takes fourth but will be disappointed that he GC lead is now down to only 13”. Alarcon is a very creditable fifth, with Pozzovivo in sixth but he drops off the podium thanks to a lack of bonus seconds.
28” behind these leaders Vital takes 7th, with his former breakaway companion Hasanovic in 8th. Kiserlovski and Abal will be pleased today as they round out the top ten and in the process put more time into the groups which are further back. Kinoshita takes 11th as the last one in this group.
1’11” behind the leaders Caruso broke free and crosses the line. Plaza, Gadret, Lovkvist and Devolder are another 13” behind him.
Keizer leads home the last of the serious GC groups 1’49” down. Nicacio, Stetina and Eltink are with him.
So Popovych moves himself into third place today, which will just make Pozzovivo’s job even more difficult. Taaramae secures the mountain jersey but will be hoping to win the yellow tomorrow. Repsol are looking like solid bets in the team classification, though with their fairly weak TT line up it could be touch-and-go again Prio-Porto in particular. Finally, Alarcon well and truly secured his young rider jersey today but might find the top 5 overall hard to hold on to. Also one final thing of note – Vasquez is rewarded with a jump from 30th to 19th today.
