The Cyanide bookies carry on their favouritism towards Bos and call him number 1 favourite even though this stage is very long and he stands very little chance of staying in the bunch. The more realistic favourites are Duque, Corioni, Castañeda, Van Heerden and Chicchi.
The first sprint comes very early and a break isn't really formed so the man who attacked first would win it and that man was Halgand he beat Mandri and Elijzen to the line.
Up the little rise the group forms and it contains 3rd in the GC Elijzen!!!!!!, Facci, Mandri, Halgand and Van Avermaet. Many riders attack behind including Gudsell, Spasic, Mahoric, Jaaskelainen, 2nd in the GC Müller!!! and Lagutin The peleton lets them go as well. Letting 3rd in the GC go is a very bold move by the peleton.
The Lagutin group is chasing the front group but as they reach the KOM point they are still 1 minute behind. Van Avermaet takes maximum points and Halgand and Elijzen mop up the rest.
Facci won the 2nd sprint and then continued to win the 3rd as the Lagutin group is still 1 minute behind them, it looks as though Lagutin made a bad move here.
With 50km to go the gap between the front group and the peleton is 3'00. With 35kms left it's down to 1'30 and the Lagutin group has been caught and dropped.
26kms to go and it will be a bunch sprint to decide the stage and Bos is still in with the lead group!!! With 12kms to go, he isn't. Then very weird tactics from Magenta...
That's right, they pulled all their teammates back and decided to ride togethor to the finish, every single one of their riders is behind the peleton and either in this group or behind them. That means Popovych is out of the running completely. (I did take a screen but Grabber2k broke )
2.5kms to go and Monfort is at the front but he won't feature in the final stages. We have Hinault-Pollack-Duque-Siedler and in the other train, Bak-Van Heerden-Castañeda-Loddo and Ventoso is miles back.
1km to go and Van Heerden is out front, but look at Castañeda!! Prime position but can he come out of Van Heerden's wheel and take the win?
No!! Van Heerden hangs on, great charge from Castañeda but Van Heerden has been very good. Also Loddo brings in some points for Telefonica, which is always good and Elijzen loses his podium place in the GC. Whereas Müller managed to keep in the peleton and his 2nd GC place.
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