A nice and easy stage today for the sprinters. There aren't any top class sprinters here in Germany and the sprints will be very close so it will be an interesting battle, between these guys.
The favourites today are Ciolek, Pederson, Napolitano, Eisel and Haedo. There are many more of the same quality but these are the main guys that are expected to battle for the wins along the flat.
We start the day with the usual break. Unfortunatley for them Saturn and Domina were having none of it. They made it to the first intermediate sprint before being caught. Piil won the sprint ahead of Kroon and Halgand.
Shortly after the initial break was caught Bozic puntured but the pace was fairly easy and he got back on with the help of Pardilla fairly sharpish.
There were more attacks of course and 4 riders got the blessing to crucify themselves.
Halgand (Credit Agricole) was in there again along with Mandri (AG2R), Visconti (Carrefour) and Calgacini (Switzerland).
Halgand led them over the KOM point to take full points and the KOM jersey. 2nd over was Mandri, followed by Visconti.
Calgacini then won the 2nd intermediate sprint ahead of Halgand and Visconti. The 3rd sprint was won by Hagland ahead of Visonti and Mandri.
The pack began to put the pace on with 110kms to go and the gap at 8'20. At the exact moment of the hammer being put down by the peleton, Tom Veelers (Gazetta) puntured and no one came back for him so he would finish dead last today and a long way behind.
The peleton made the catch with 18kms left to race, a perfectly timed catch and it would be a bunch sprint. Unfortunatley for some though, the pace was a bit too hot and a couple of handy riders had to let go of the bunch. The likes of Ardila, Rubiera, Ortega and Jufre had to let go.
Then a crash happened within the bunch!
Roberto Petito (FloGas) went down but didn't take anyone with him. He consecuently got ran over by the motorbike. Luckily Petito has a large tongue and could continue.
The peleton then wound up for the sprint and with 3kms to go the field looked like this:
The riders at the front will not affect the result, they aren't sprinters. The sprinters are positioned behind them and will overtake the quickly. On the far left we can see the Carlsberg train made up of Baumann-Eisel-Florencio. In the middle we have a very dangerous looking train forming with Haedo-Ciolek-Napolitano-Bozic-Forero-Clerc.
With 1km to go it seems as though the Haedo train was boxed in and didn't get as good start as the Carlsberg train.
Eisel is in the lead and looking strong, perfect lead-out by Baumann. However, Haedo is coming up strong and Napolitano is still yet to come out of Ciolek's wheel. Can Eisel hold on?
Yes, very impressive win by the Carlsberg riders. Fothen keeps hold of his GC lead and there is no change in the top 10 in fact. Fothen still holds the U-25 jersey and points jersey. Halgand will wear the KOM jersey tomorrow.
