Another exciting-looking profile and as it is before the ITT in the next stage, the riders will be aiming to gain as much time on the leader Fothen, as possible. He has suprised everyone by being so strong so far, but he looked to be struggling yesterday. If the finishline was a further 1km away he would've been dropped, but it wasn't, so he's still in yellow.
The favourites are the same as the other stages but the main riders to look out for today will be Schleck and Rujano.
After 10kms a break is set up and looks like this:
It contains Engels (Carrefour), Frohlinger (Germany), Halgand (C.A) and Zaugg (Switzerland). They went over the top of the first KOM point with Engels taking maximum points ahead of Frohlinger and Halgand. Halgand then won the first sprint ahead of Frohlinger and Engels.
On the monster climb in the middle of today's stage, Zaugg had to let the break go. Then the pack started chasing hard, which resulted in Kessler, Garzelli and Jufre off the front because they were pulling too hard. They sat up and dropped back though.
At the top of the big climb, the peleton had shrunk to 28 riders, including; Bruseghin, Zubeldia, Devolder, Dekker, Schleck, Rujano, Perez Cuapio, Sanchez Gonzalez, Evans, Parra Pinto, Sevilla, Fothen, Intxausi, Kessler, Garzelli and Klöden. Notable missing names are Solis, Abal, Giacinti, Pecharroman and Mancebo.
Halgand goes over the top of the climb first to take full points, followed by Frohlinger then Engels and they went over the top of the next col in the same order.
As the peleton started the 4th col of the day Moncoutie attacked:
He was followed only by Gerdemann, so after a few kilometers they were brought back. Suddenly with 40kms to the finish we had our favourite group on their own:
Present are Leipheimer, Schleck, Evans, Fothen, Dekker, Klöden and Menchov. Again the notable absentees are Parra Pinto, Rujano, Sevilla, and the riders that were dropped long ago.
With 35km to the finish Leipheimer and Dekker got clear:
They were reeled back in though, and Leipheimer payed for his efforts and dropped back from that group. Dekker stayed in there though.
Fothen is leading the favourites up to the finish and trying to keep them away from the group behind them, containing som riders who managed to bridge up and are working like, Devolder, Perez Cuapio, Sanchez Gonzalez, Zubeldia, Rujano, Sevilla and Garzelli.
With 2kms to go the front group consisted of Schleck, Klöden, Dekker, Fothen and Evans. Menchov had been dropped and they lined up ready for the sprint.
Who would win? Dekker is the fastest by a long way so theoretically he should win.
But he doesn't. Schleck wins!! But drama, as someone has bonked?!
It's Evans, 200m from the line and he loses contact with the front group and his 2nd place in the GC. Disaster for him, he will have a big job to do in the ITT. After today's time bonus' for Klöden he is now, just 4 seconds behind Fothen, the TT will be very exciting.
