First stage is flat local lap around Mino. 166 km with 6 ascents of a local tunnel. 4 of them are categorised but the hill shouldn't be hard enough to put the sprinters in difficulties.
Peeters, Vingerling and Giacoppo should be the topfavourites today.
Adamou initiates the day's first attack. He was 9th yesterday and is Armavia's best chance for the overal with a chane for top 10. Delgerbayar and Diaz Corrales follow. Oz staying agressive while holding the leader's jersey with Rogers.
Diaz Corrales wins the first mountain prime with Delgerbayar passing Adamou right before the line to take second. The gap to the peloton has quickly grown and we can conclude that this will be the break of the day.
A crash in the peloton. It's top favourite Marquez who crashes on the steep descent. His teammates have no problems bringing him back to the peloton but we have to wait and see if he has sustained any serious or small injury.
With the team of race leader Rogers having someone in the break, they don't do any work at the front of the peloton. WWE, Cisco, Jaguar, Repsol and CSC put one of two guys at the front to control the pace.
Good tactic from Oz Cycling Project as Delgerbayar is not doing any work at the front either so they are really saving energy.
HTC meanwhile have more bad luck as Amissa Bongo winner Serry has a flat tire.
Diaz Corrales took the second mountain sprint aswell but Amadou just passes him on the line for the 3rd. Delgerbayar who was 3rd these last two primes seems to care less.
When the gap reached 8 minutes around the 90 km to go the teams of Vingerling, Peeters and Ferrari organise a chase and start to close the gap to the leaders.
Makino crashed but luckily for the JK Cycling leadout train he could come back.
Diaz Corrales seizes the mountain jersey by defeating Adamou on the last prime.
He now has 22 points which is 6 points more as Adamou and 12 more as Delgerbayar.
Their advantage has decreased to just over 2 minutes with 30 km to the finish line.
Sneaky Delgerbayar used the rest right after the mountain prime to attack and is now leading alone with 25 seconds lead over the chasing duo.
Right before the start of the final hill and Delgerbayar is caught by his earlier companions. Their journey is over as the peloton led by WWE and JK Cycling overtake them and start preparing the sprint.
A strong pull from Ardila over the hill and the peloton is really stretching. This resulted in most sprinters falling back quite a bit over the hill. They have a lot of positions to make up with only 5 km to go.
This will be a messy sprint for sure.
Starting the final descent and Rogers, Bibby and Costa are the big GC contenders sittting right at the front.
It looks really bad for the sprinters. Vingerling and Giacoppo are around 50th position with only Arashiro and Uugunbayar sitting a bit more to the front. This should be impossible unless the pace drops drastically.
The Repsol trio Acevedo, Kebede and Agudelo are the first three to start their sprint as we turn up the final straight with only 1.5 kilometres to the finish line.
Acevedo is the fastest of them and passes under the flamme rouge with a small gap to the rest of the pack.
Coming fast from behind is Masuda. Voeckler, Ardila, Gottfried, Ortega, Kebede, Agudelo and Ardila Cano all lack the speed to gain anyting on Acevedo who isn't slowing down either.
Rogers, Bibby and Costa are still waiting to start their sprint and it looks like they are losing the chance to gain valuable bonus seconds.
Acevedo looks comfortable for the win. Masuda and Schurter are trying to pass the WWE and Repsol riders for the podium while now everyone behind has started their sprint aswell.
Acevedo can celebrate victory and the leader's jersey. He took a risk by going first but it clearly paid off in this fast final. He easily kept his gap aswell so really strong sprint from him.
Voeckler and Ardila hold on for 2nd and 3rd respectively. Valuable bonus seconds for the latter as he moves up to third overal.
Bibby and Costa came fast in the end, they definatly could have taken more here had they started their sprints earlier.
So the leader's jersey is for Acevedo. He should have no problems defending it on the next hilly stage but the gaps are still small so bonus seconds are still vital.
