It took a bit longer but now here it is: The queen stage in Greece. Many riders still have chances to fight for the overall crown and the experts expect a battle between Dekker and Taaramae with some bets also on Alarcon.
But surely more riders want to jump into the battle.
Lots of attacks today. In the end 4 riders successfully made it: Loosli (81./+16'09) Orozco (54./+11'03) Hasanovic (37./+4'56) Wu (92./+21'44)
So it`s probably Hasanovic who could disturb the group a bit as he isn`t placed that bad.
Most notable attack that wasn`t successful is probably the one by Kunitski, runner up in the KoM competition. But after 3 attacks he is back in the peloton again to the favour of Novikov.
First sprint but nobody cares. Orozco ahead of Hasanovic and Wu.
We just entered the climb to the Cat.2 and Vueling has everything under control. A bit more than 3min at the moment.
A group of 12 is already behind around some minor sprinters like Haddou and Matzka. They really have to fight now to finish within the time limit.
No one cares about the KoM and so Loosli takes it easily ahead of Hasanovic, Orozco and Wu.
But more important. The last points to reward go to KoM leader Novikov. So he extends his lead by a few points.
Bouygues and Swedbank joined Vueling at the front and higher the pace a bit. What do they plan today?
Taaramae surely wants to attack Dekker and Swedbank probably has a lot of trust in themselves right now after lots of good results recently. So Lövkvist might be expected to feel good as well.
Next KoM and Hasanovic, Orozco, Loosli, Wu is the order. Once again without any ambitions. Almost 5min says the timer.
Novikov did not wait for the peloton after the Cat.2 and he is still ahead at this point. So he again takes more points and might be the winner of the KoM ranking now as the last points go to some helpers.
Split!
No GC riders though but some decent climbers like Briceno, Brenes or Lewis, who will miss their leaders now.
Hasanovic takes the next sprint and a few more seconds. Who knows if those will become important later.
Loosli and Orozco behind him.
40km left and Vueling in full control again. Also they always controlled the group ahead and the gap is down to 3'40 again.
What`s that?
We have the first GC attacks on those smaller bumps with 35km to go. Popovych the initiator. The pressure of a top5 might play a big role here.
He is folled by Kunshin, Gomez Marchante, Briceno, who obviously made it back to the favourite group, Ratiy and Efimkin.
So lots of dangerous riders here with a somewhat surprising move.
But they were all brought back but some riders immediately try again.
Again Popovych with the first attack followed by weaker climbers Briceno and Shimizu.
Yet again no chance. Too many teams with too strong helpers behind.
But he isn`t giving up. Again Popovych and I am not sure if his manager likes this a lot.
But this time some bigger names follow such as we reached the start of the final climb. Pozzovivo Alarcon Shizimu Zurita
Still 12km to go and all attackers are caught. This also includes the breakaway who couldn`t survive against the fast peloton. That said the peloton still has 83 riders as the high pace was mainly on the flat so far.
But despite the size of the peloton, some riders again underperform. So we have some riders again that are dropped earlier than expected: Morabito Olivier
What a power by Popovych today. Once again he inititates an attack followed by Devolder, Kiserlovski and Zurita.
A tiny bit later some more follow like Castano, Alarcon and Cataldo.
But so far Vueling controls all of those attacks. No chance so far and Vueling still has 4 riders ahead of Dekker!!!
But we have more attacks and this time it`s Kiserlovski followed by lots of riders.
Eventually good news for the attackers as Dekker follows this time as well. So the Vueling train might calm down now.
Not so good news for most other riders as only Taaramae is able to follow the Dutch with 6,5km to go. All other riders are back in the 60 rider peloton.
But mainly Kiserlovski is doing a higher pace behind and so also this duo is being caught. And with 3km to go we have still a 53 rider group. What a disappointment so far.
Close to the 1km banner it`s Pozzovivo with the next attempt followed by Devolder and Lövkvist, who did wait with the attacks so far, which might have been a good decision.
Flamme Rouge and finally we see some smaller gaps here with the mentioned trio in the first positions followed by Efimkin, Ji and Gomez Marchante.
What a surprise as the top favourites are having a short gap despite Pozzovivo, who opened it.
But they close the gap again and we have so many riders sprinting uphill.
Dekker and Taaramae decided to go on the right while most others are on the left side.
Unlucky Dekker as he is blocked by Eltink, while Taaramae found the gap and goes past him.
Somehow Dekker find a way to go past him and is in a good position just behind Taaramae who is in the lead now, while the early sprinters lost their speed a bit.
Very close sprint between those two. But it`s Taaramae winning with a few millimeters ahead of Dekker. Still this is enough for him to keep the overall lead.
Unfortunately without a screen for some reason but 3rd goes to Pozzovivo, who at least is rewarded with some bonus seconds that move him into 4th GC just behind Lövkvist, who finished 7th today.
Cataldo and Ochoa Quintero a bit surprising as 4th and 5th of the day ahead of Kiserlovski. But as all riders were within the same time as actually the first 41 riders, this doesn`t change a lot.
Disappointing queen stage as positioning is so important in the GC. Popovych tried a lot and this might have been his problem today. Due to the weaker placements he is just 15th in the GC even though he has the same time as Levarlet in 5th, which was his goal actually.
So even tomorrows flat stage might mix the GC quite a lot due to stage placements.
And we also have some abandons today.
The 12 riders who got dropped early didn`t make it in the time limit and here are those 12. Some teams are hit hard number wise:
