Without several top sprinters this flat stage could be a bit different. Also the stage is not completely flat and with 245km not the easiest.
245km in a 3rd week GT? Is this necessary? Obviously yes.
8 riders in todays breakaway and John Devine sees a chance to secure the KoM jersey on this stage with 3 high value KoM. Nikolay Mihaylov Aleksandr Bespalov Josh Atkins Fredrik Strand Galta Peter Pancake Phan Age Haugard John Devine Fredy Piamonte
Devine attacked too early and was caught again at the KoM, so he only takes 3rd behind Mikhaylov and Pancake.
Out of the peloton Kung and Dieteren fight for the last points with later taking the more.
3 teams doing the early pace. Prio Porto for Santos, Meiji for Manan and Sram for Mezgec. So still some quality left here of course.
Also interesting to see Sousa (5th GC) doing some work.
But it`s not fast yet as the gap is up to 12min with 150km to go.
Again Devine too late or better too early to take the maximum points. still 3rd for him with Dieteren again outsprinting Kung in the peloton.
Under 100km to go now and the gap is up to 18min!
Apparently no team is willed to work for that long when having to save energy for the remaining stages.
So this one is for the breakaway.
Finally Devine attacked a bit later and takes the points easily. He could have gotten far more points here, still he is extending his lead a lot.
23km left and Pancake attacks with Bespalov following.
They know that Mihaylov is the best sprinter in the group and want to get rid of him of course.
But it was mainly Mihaylov to bring those back to deliver Boeing a 2nd stage win.
Haugard meanwhile can`t follow and is out of the competition.
Pancake
Mihaylov
Atkins
Galta
Devine
Piamonte
Bespalov
is the order with 3km to go. Perfect position for Mihaylov.
Pancake starts the sprint and immediately the first two have a gap as Atkins got surprised.
Unlucky Galta was behind Atkins and has to go the long way around. But he is coming fast from behind.
With 700m he takes the lead. But Mihaylov has waited until now to leave Pancake`s wheel.
But the hills and the previous mountain stages obviously exhausted him a lot more than Galta as the talent takes the stage here. Great success already in his neo-pro season.
Mihaylov as 2nd ahead of Pancake. The others just couldn`t react in the end.
More or less all remaining sprinters are in the first positions with Meiji doing some kind of leadout for Manan. Edmondson and Bouhanni do the main work.
But while Bouhanni is going onto the last 3 kilometers now, Edmondson smartly blocks the strongest remaining sprinter in Mezgec.
Still no chance. Mezgec shows that he is the strongest sprinter from far behind an takes the 9th ahead of Keough and Santos. After a gap Manan as 4th of the peloton with another gap to the rest.
Eventually we might see a more interesting sprint finish for the stage win on the last stage. But therefore the remaining sprinters need to pass some mountains first.
