Just like yesterday's stage, the third stage is a local circuit with a hill. Today's hill is harder and has to be climbed more as yesterday's. The sprinters didn't stand a chance yesterday so today should definatly be for the punchers. All riders with GC ambitions will have to watch out that they don't lose valuable time.
There are 4 mountain sprints today. On the 2nd, the 5th, the 8th and the 11th and penultimate ascent of today's hill. They are 2nd category which is higher as yesterday's hill.
The bookies see Bibby, Efimkin and Hatanaka as the three biggest favourites.
Going up the hill for the first time, It's Kastrantas who makes the day's first attack. Watson, Tankink and Ortega immediately jump in his wheel.
The pace in the peloton stays low and they quickly become our break of the day as their advantage is already over 2 minutes when descending.
Next ascent and Choi wants to break away aswell. Berard ups the pace leading the peloton and the Japanese can't create a gap.
The escapees seemingly don't care for the mountain points available as Kastrantas leads over with Watson, Tankink and Ortega in his wheel.
There are still two points available for the 5th rider and it's Adamou who moves himself 2 points closer to Diaz Corrales.
Bad news for Choi and JK Cycling as he crashes and cannot get up again. He has to abandon with an injury only minutes after attacking.
The descent is clearly technical as now Kaisen, positioned 9th in the GC after a good prologue, crashes. Luckily for CSC, he can continue.
The workload in the peloton is shared early on as Cisco, HTC and ING help out Repsol. It's Repsol's sprinter Ferrari who is doing most of the work for them early on.
The escapees do sprint for the mountain points the second time around as Watson takes 10 points in front of Kastrantas, Ortega and Tankink in that order. Adamou takes 5th again in the peloton.
Diaz Corrales is still leading with 22 points but Adamou is now only 2 points behind and both Watson and Kastrantas have 18 points.
Adamou continued after he passed the mountain prime and is now riding alone in between the break and the peloton. He is 4 minutes and a half behind the leaders with the peloton 1 minute furhter back.
Bad news for Meji and once again HTC. First Goos and later Shimizu fell during the descent. Luckily for both of them, they can continue and rejoin the peloton. Especially the latter can have hopes for a top 10 overal.
Matzka, Baumann and Jorgensen in the meanwhile are the first riders to get dropped.
Third mountain sprint and once again Watson is the first over the line. This means he now takes the lead. Kastrantas and Ortega once again 2nd and 3rd as Tankink got dropped. The WWE returned during the descent.
Adamou, still swimming in between, takes 5th once more as he is now 2 minutes behind the leading trio and 2 minutes in front of the peloton.
The peloton has clearly accalerated with ING, Jaguar and CSC now doing all the work. Both the KoM jersey ( Diaz Corrales) and the U25 jersey ( Fraile) are taking turns.
More riders got dropped with most important names being Lewis and Goos who crashed earlier.
Adamou's 'chasse patatte' is over as we see the first attacks from some outsiders. It's Lloyd with Agudelo, Serry and Van Huffel jumping in his wheel. They can't create any gap though.
30 km to go and the peloton is 2 minutes behind the break.
Watson also wins the fourth and last mountain sprint. Ortega just edges Kastrantas for the 2nd place which gives Watson a bigger lead.
Dyachenko goes in the attack right as we start the day's final hill. Hatanaka is right in his wheel while Wang and race leader Acevedo are also trying to jump behind.
Castano, Costa and Puusepp followed aswell but they can't create a decent gap on the peloton where the Jaguar team chases everything back together.
The move catches the break though so still one kilometre to climb where attacks could stick.
Castano still had some energy left and put in another dig. It was a really strong accaleration which immediately created a gap. With no immediate reaction behind, it seems like this is a move that could stick.
As he starts the descent, Castano has 35 seconds on a favourites group that is 44 riders strong.
Efimkin uses a small bump during the descent to attack away from the group where no one is really chasing hard.
Inside the final 2 kilometre and Efimkin has almost closed the gap to Castano. The ING rider still has 8 seconds advantage. It looks over and out for the other riders as the group is 37 seconds behind Efimkin.
It seems like 4 riders are sprinting away from that group. Costa, Bibby, Hatanaka and Acevedo have way more speed then anyone else. Could they possibly still be a threat to Efimkin and Castano?
No! Castano holds on and takes a deserved victory after a strong attack on the final uphill. Efimkin's chase was strong but he couldn't come anything closer inside the final kilometre.
We will have to wait and see how big the time differences are between Castano and Efimkin and then the others. They are just behind the final corner but it could actually be that the race directors don't give any.
Bibby wins the sprint for third and takes valuable bonus seconds. Hatanaka and Costa complete the top 5. Acevedo is next with Schurter taking 6th after coming strong inside the final 500 metres. Just like yesterday, more could have been possible with better positioning.
Things are not looking good for Rogers. He lost contact with the group inside the final kilometre and might lose some time.
The jury is mild for Rogers as he is the last rider in the same time as the winner. That means Castano and Efimkin only get the bonus seconds today. Furious reactions by ING and Cisco team managers are expected. Castano still takes the leaders jersey with 4 seconds to Acevedo. 29 riders are still in contention with Agudelo, Kilun and Ortega as biggest names that lost time.
Matzka, Baumann and Jorgensen were out of time and join Choi on the out of the race-list.
