A flat stage today and Nazon is the outright favourite. Jimmy Casper is suprisingly only a 2-star favourite as Grillo and Usov are upgraded to 3-star choices.
In the break we have Sohrabi, Fernandez, Meirhaeghe, Zandio, Tankink, Zberg, Aistrup, Bole, Ostergaard, Seyfert and Friedman. Tankink took the points from the KOM point ahead of Zandio and Zberg.
Then with 100kms left the breakaway's lead over the peleton has peaked at 9'50. They make it to the 1st sprint of the day easily though and Fernandez wins it ahead of Meirhaeghe and Seyfert.
Bad news again for Une - Orbitel as Sinkewitz is dropped again from the peleton, but we don't really care anyway, serves him right. Back up front and the breakaway have made it to the final intermediate sprint which was won by Friedman ahead of Meirhaeghe and Fernandez. They now have a lead of 4'51" with 40kms left, they could make it!
With 18kms it is decided. The breakway has a lead of 4 minutes and will definatley make it.
Zandio, Meirhaeghe and Tankink breakaway from the group with 10kms left!! Then with 8kms left for the peleton...
Mass crash!!! About 30 riders are down and the biggest names are, Balducci, Bongiorno, Van Heeswijk, Van Dijk, Guillen, Godfrey, Downing, Trampusch, Degano, Clarke, Farrar, Huff, Vicioso (11th GC), Cassidy (5th GC), Arango and Swift (9th GC).
This isn't disturbing the front group though, and although the 3 escapees were caught, Meirhaeghe still has a slight gap. Sohrabi, Zberg and Friedman are the only real sprinters in the group and all 3 are at the back of the group, Friedman is in the "slipstream" of both of them. (Fernandez has been dropped)
With 1km to go, Zberg blasts into the lead!! Friedman is sprinting like a climber and now has no chance of the win. Sohrabi is powering away on the far side though as Meirhaeghe's dreams of a stage win are gone.
Zberg wins! The breakaway is succesfull again and a nice podium for Health Net whilst results have been rather scarce, but have any of them done enough to steal the lead from Caethoven??
Also there was another mysterious withdrawal, although this guy did go down in the crash, it's Nico Mattan!
Stage Results
1
Markus Zberg
DESIGNA KØKKEN
4h34'55"
2
Mahdi Sohrabi
HEALTH NET PRESENTED BY MAXXIS
s.t.
3
Mike Friedman
TEAM SLIPSTREAM
s.t.
4
Grega Bole
AGRITUBEL
s.t.
5
Nikola Aistrup
MAXBO BIANCHI
s.t.
6
Niki Østergaard
BENFICA
s.t.
7
Fillip Meirhaeghe
LANDBOUWKREDIET - TÖNISSTEINER
s.t.
8
Bram Tankink
VOLKSBANK
s.t.
9
Xabier Zandio
DISCOVERY CHANNEL MARCO POLO CYCLING TEAM
s.t.
10
Koldo Fernandez
SOUTHAUSTRALIA.COM - AIS
s.t.
11
Pieter Seyfert
BARLOWORLD
+ 1'44
12
Aleksandr Usov
TINKOFF CREDIT SYSTEMS
+ 2'31
13
Hans Dekkers
AGRITUBEL
s.t.
14
Paride Grillo
CERAMICA PANARIA - NAVIGARE
s.t.
15
Julian Dean
NIPPO CORPORATION - MEITAN HOMPO CO. LTD - ASADA
s.t.
16
Tiziano Dall'Antonia
CERAMICA PANARIA - NAVIGARE
s.t.
17
Jimmy Casper
PROCYCLING - BBC
s.t.
18
Gennadi Mikhailov
CERAMICA PANARIA - NAVIGARE
s.t.
19
Peter Wrolich
TINKOFF CREDIT SYSTEMS
s.t.
20
Fredrik Johansson
DESIGNA KØKKEN
s.t.
and the guys involved in the crash lost a lot of time
88
Max Van Heeswijk
DISCOVERY CHANNEL MARCO POLO CYCLING TEAM
+ 4'36
89
Ruben Bongiorno
LANDBOUWKREDIET - TÖNISSTEINER
s.t.
99
Angel Viciosio
HEALTH NET PRESENTED BY MAXXIS
s.t.
100
Gerhard Trampusch
VOLKSBANK
s.t.
101
Ben Swift
BARLOWORLD
s.t.
GC
Caethoven keeps his jersey!! It will be very interesting to see if he can keep it after the ITT tomorrow due to his poor TT'ing ability (56TT i think)
