One week passed already and the GC so far was more selective than you would have thought. In especially the two hilly stages dropped some GC riders while the strongest finished together. The TTT though delivered Kashechkin as very good position before the mountains and also his win yesterday showed that he is the top favourite.
In the mountains we now will see if he can justify his lead and what others like Kiserlovski, Ardila/Pellizotti or Anton can do against him.
Also interesting to see what those riders, who did lose time already, are going to do. With Ratiy, Krasnoperov and Stetina we have quite famous riders in a bad position.
Let`s take a closer look on the profile and in especially the slopes. The long Cat.2 in the middle is pretty unconsistent with lots of short descents in between. Still the uphill sections are quite steep, which makes it a hard mountain and could lead to a first selection.
The final climb then isn`t the longest but it`s always steep with the toughest part in the middle. Eventually the perfect section to attack. Towards the end we have the "easiest" part but still a huge difficulty.
First KoM is reached and there is no breakaway yet. But we have the first group of riders having a small gap, which might become the group.
And Meiji`s manager might be pleased to see his actual GC rider Stetina in the attack. Not sure yet if it`s for the KoM or the stage win.
2nd here is Sousa, who already tried it yesterday and sits in 7th position in the GC.
Khripta, Dieteren and Kung follow next.
Crash!!! Ardila, 3rd in the GC on the ground. Bad luck for WWE as he is their top GC rider. But luckily he can continue. Is he injured? We have to wait until later I guess.
Sutherland and Paulinho drop from the peloton immediately and wait for him.
It takes them 6km to bring him back right before the Cat.3.
Also other dropped riders profit from this and come back.
Next KoM after a very steep Cat.3 and still those 5 riders ahead. But the peloton is not allowing them much now and isn`t far behind.
Again Stetina, Sousa and Khripta the order here.
Afterwards the peloton slows down and so we have a group of five and actually it could be a less dangerous breakway as some well placed riders are in there.
Stetina
(62./15'50)
Dieteren
(47./11'32)
Kung
(81./19'10)
Khripta
(12./3'44)
Sousa
(7./2'13)
So in especially last two performed pretty well so far while Stetina of course is the strongest climber.
Meanwhile we have the first abandon. For no specific reason Antonio Carvalho stops and gives up. So one helper less for Nicacio or Santos in the upcoming stages.
CSC comes to the front with 115km to go and a gap of 8'20. They are supported by Hollister but it`s actually 80/20.
Intermediate sprint and Sousa is interested in the bonus seconds. No one else so Khripta and Kung pass the line next.
Half way up the climb and the gap is down to 5min.
One rider struggles a lot. Awang is dropped since the begin of the climb and is already 11min behind. This will be hard to avoid disqualification.
And we also have the first split with half of the peloton being gapped. Most notable names here are Vorontsov Hollister Reis Barton Rajala
4min on top of the mountain where Stetina takes the maximum points. Sousa and Khripta again as next while Dieteren and Kung take the last points.
The two biggest GC teams in Repsol and Hollister accelerate in the peloton. 40km left and 4min for the breakaway.
Stetina and Kung attack from the breakaway still on the flat with 16km to go. They realize that Sousa and Khripta are not good for their chances to take the stage win.
It took a 2nd and a 3rd attack. But now with 10km to go they created a small gap finally.
The peloton is now almost 4min behind which shows that the pace isn`t the highest behind. But the final climb is still ahead.
5km and Stetina is still solo ahead of Kung and the rest of the breakway.
5,2km to go for the favourites and Kiserlovski with the first attack. This obviously puts a lot of pressure on the others.
3 riders follow and one of them is the yellow jersey of Kashechkin. The others are Pellizotti and CT rider Vrecer, who is a huge surprise so far in the PCT mountain races. With an ambitious Top5 goal here by the team he so far delivers very well.
Kiserlovski reaches the breakaway. Only Stetina is still 1'53 ahead with 3km to go.
Behind the peloton is down to 40 riders as Ratiy and Lowe increased the pace, which brought the other 3 attackers back.
Strong ride by Kashechkin as he closes the gap to Kiserlovski by his own.
He also creates a small gap to the rest and so we have the two strongest GC riders ahead of the peloton.
Also huge splits in the rest of the peloton and some big names are in the later part even though the top riders were attentive.
Stetina
<1'51>
Kiserlovski
<22>
Dieteren
<1'13>
Krasnoperov
Kashechkin
Pellizotti
Agudelo
Sousa
Anton
Jiriakov
Khriptov
Vrecer
Txurruka
Gadret
Schurter
Lowe
Osella
Nicacio
Cabreira
Paulinho
Danielson
Ardila
Lewis
Briceno
Jiao
Marentes
…
Peraud
Dyachenko
Kung
Ratiy
Hudecek
Ochoa Quintero
Kiserlovski with the next attack. He really wants to show his ambitions here and it`s also a question of morale in between him and Kashechkin to be the stronger on the first mountain stage.
400m gap in between him and Stetina in front with 1,4km for the US American, who could become the first US winner here.
Ratiy in huge problems. This doesn`t help his team at all and he is far below expectations.
Together with him Ochoa Quintero and Hudecek are dropped.
3rd time in this race that a Meiji rider passes the Flamme Rouge first. So far they had one good and one bad experience in the end. Today it`s still wide open as the others are coming closer from behind with every meter.
Kiserlovski gained 30s on the last 500m and the gap is down to 18s with 400m to go.
And he indeed passes him on the line. Again very bad luck for the Meiji team. Still a nice come back by Stetina.
Race leader Kashechkin losing 14s in the end as he finished with a small gap as 3rd. So the GC fight stays exciting with Kiserlovski reducing the gap a bit.
Igor Anton on a good 4th today 49s behind Kiserlovski. But as he has a gap behind him he improves his position.
Behind a trio with +1'05: Pellizotti, Gadret and Vrecer, who indeed improves onto 5th GC after the first mountain stage.
+1'26 then a bigger group being led by Ardila, who looks fine after his crash, which is good news. Nevertheless he drops back to 4th behind his teammate Pellizotti. Great team performance.
Also in this group Sousa, Lowe, Dyachenko, Paulinho, Briceno, Nicacio and Peraud. So with 3 WWE riders already in they extend their lead in the team rankings.
Ratiy one of todays disappointments as he finishes +2'04 only. He will have to hope for better legs the next days. At least he is the new leader in the U25 ranking.
Krasnoperov even finishes another 35s later and is the 2nd big disappointment.
Awang in the end is losing more than 1h and this means, he will have to leave the race as 2nd abandon today.
All other riders made it in time.
Again PCM did not export the results, so here as picture again.
