2nd stage in New Zealand and already the first of two hilly finishes. The final climb on Bluff Hill is not very long and there are no other difficulties before. But all puncheurs know, that they need to attack here. Otherwise they won`t stand any chance.
Froome proved last season, that you can create gaps on such a short climb and so we expect the riders to act similar.
Easy game for Oz Cycling at the start without any attack.
O'Shea in the yellow and Scully in the white jersey is a nice success for them so far.
Nothing happened until the intermediate. So some sprinters went for the points already.
Giacoppo takes it ahead of Gavazzi and Thorsen.
Other sprinters like Guillen or Maksimov obviously don`t want to spend energy here and will wait for the sprint finishes.
Finally a group has been formed and so four riders have a 40s gap with 40km to go. Kung Petrovski Slagter Delaplace
Quite a weird situation as they still need to ride 28km of totally flat terrain before the 3km climb even starts.
They really need to be careful here.
At the same time Maksimov`s biggest helper Gomenyuk crashes. Luckily no one else is falling as he was riding in the front rows.
He can continue the race, but is he injured? This wouldn`t be very good for Maksimov`s chances.
The group of 4 was just caught, when they attack again with 20km left.
The chances are very bad but they don`t give up yet.
Cadbury (Torckler), Ekspla (Cioban) and Privatbank (Vorganov) have send their riders to the front to higher the actual pace. We are slowly going onto the last 10km and the group still has a 50s advantage.
Also they obviously want to exhaust their opponents before the uphill part.
6km to go and we reach Bluff Hill. Slagter is the last rider trying it as he still has a small gap.
Several riders lost contact due to the high pace like Chen, Olman or Howson.
3,4km to go and the climb will start soon. Petrovski with another try to surprise the peloton.
He is having a small gap when starting the climb.
Most favourites are in the first half of the peloton, while in especially Nardin and Rocchetti are a big far behind.
Petrovski is caught by Hutchings, who is doing the pace for Ekspla.
O'Shea is also fighting today as he is seen within the first 10 riders. But still the peloton is pretty much together.
1,5km and the best puncheurs accelerate at the front. Good news for Rocchetti as he was brought into a very good position by a team mate. Also O'Shea was placed very nice by Scully.
Firsanov, Ollson, Siskevicius, Kirchen, Vorganov are all in the first 15 positions, while the other puncheurs are placed a bit behind.
Rocchetti starts the sprint with Firsanov being right behind him. On the other side Oz is trying to defend their jerseys.
Rocchetti and Firsanov have opened a small gap to the next but still very close here.
Vorganov, Kirchen and Olsson follow next with Mudarra, Siskevicius and Anuar Aziz behind those.
Other riders like Torckler, Nardin or Cioban were not placed very well today and might lose time.
Also the Oz duo couldn`t follow the acceleration by the better puncheurs and can just reduce their loss today.
Rocchetti was clearly the strongest as he is able to celebrate already a few meters ahead of the line. He wins the stage and will also get a gap to Firsanov in 2nd.
Also Vorganov, Kirchen and Ollson, who follow from 3-5 are getting a gap to the peloton. They finish 20s behind Rocchetti and 15s ahead of the next group.
This group is led by Anuar Aziz and is counting 45 riders, who lost 35s today. So nothing is lost yet, but they need to attack on the other stages.
With Torckler, Nardin, Porsev, Petit and Friedman some fast men were also in this group and might be able to get a few bonus seconds on the flat stages.
All other riders were either in the 2'10 group or finished far behind.
The earlier mentioned group of sprinters being dropped early were lucky to finish just in the time limit. Surely something to learn from.
In the GC Rocchetti is taking over from O'Shea, who is still in 5th position after this stage. But this hill has proven to create gaps and the 6th stage is definitely the harder one, where the non climbers will struggle again.
