The fifth day of San Luis features the only mountain-stage. 164km in total, today's route has just one climb, but it's the toughest of the entire race and may be the most crucial.
The question may be the final flat 20kms though. Will this give the less outstanding climbers a chance to hang on with the best? Or will we see too huge gaps at the mountaintop to allow dropped groups to come back?
A group of 7 riders will build the break of the day and is allowed a bigger gap early into the race:
So the two shared mountain-leaders did their job to go for a possible KoM-lead today. Best climber in this group is Adamou, which could be a tactical move by the so far rather disappointing Euskaltel-team.
97km remaining and the peloton - led by ONCE and Maloja - starts to control the gap, which is at 7'55" at this moment.
We make a jump into the final 50km of the stage and the peloton is still led by the mentioned teams and narrowed the gap to 5'25" in the meantime. Today's only Intermediate Sprint was taken out by Affonso, by the way. Uncontested, so not of much interest.
This move will be of interest though! At the bottom of the climb (25km to go), a group of 4 riders attacks the bunch, which is 4'00" down on the breakaway:
Hasanovic, Di Gregorio, Sayar and Ardila!
The latter as the best-placed in GC (20th, + 1.28), with Sayar not too far behind though (21st, + 1.30). So definitely a dangerous group, that establishes a 30"-gap on the bunch quickly.
Same counts for the next bunch of riders, who try to keep a high pace early into the climb: Rodas (8th, + 0.30) leads a small group with several GC-contenders, not yet opening a gap though.
But they launch an attack now and yes, there's a gap as well! 7 riders try to jump behind group Sayar/Ardila:
McConvey, Rodas, Godoy/Beltran, De Greef, Kasa and Castano!
Of course this is another dangerous move and some more riders join this group: Nicacio and Rudaskov to be precisive!
Gaps at this moment (22km to go, 3.5km to mountain-top):
E1 (7 riders)
E2 (4 riders, Group Ardila/Sayar) at 2.50
E3 (9 riders, Group Castano/Beltran/Rodas) at 3.30
E4 (Jumabekov) at 4.11
P (99 riders, with Ibanez/Valencia, Fumic/Schwab, Kulhavy, Rosskopf) at 4.32
Rosskopf (GC's 7th) and Safarzadeh (6th) don't want to miss out on this maybe crucial moves and try to jump behind a few moments later!
Back to the very front, where launches an attack 1.3km to the mountain-top! He's followed by Pirazzi and Vosekalns only, so this may be good news for the latter KoM-wise.
An overview of the situation behind the breakaway riders:
Group Ardila/Sayar at 2.19
Group Castano/Rodas/Beltran at 3.07
Group Rosskopf/Safarzadeh at 4.19
Peloton with Ibanez/Valencia, Fumic/Schwab (33 riders in total) at 4.51
So some clear gaps between those groups and race-leader Ibanez faces a tough final 20km, that's for sure!
Even more, now that he's dropped by the bigger group 2km to the mountaintop!
Close to the mountaintop, Adamou sets another attack and opens up a gap on his two remaining breakaway companions!
2'53" later, the first groups of GC-favorites are close to the top as well. In between, the remaining escapees try to fight their way to the flat finish.
Group Castano managed to catch up to Group Ardila in the meantime and we also see some changes in the smaller groups behind.
E6 (at 2.53)
E7 (3.50)
E8 (4.15)
E9 (4.40)
Ardila
Kasa
Safarzadeh
Rosskopf
Di Gregorio
Duenas
Castano
Orozco
Hasanovic
Arredondo
Sayar
Kulhavy
Nicacio
Fumic
Godoy
Montenegro
Rodas
Jumabekov
McConvey
Jeannesson
Rudaskov
Beltran
De Greef
So yes, no Schwab/Dyadichkin, Vasquez/Sequera, Haga or Ibanez, who are all 6'51" in arrears by now. Good news for Maloja, that Fumic at least managed to join Group Rosskopf in the meantime.
Castano attacks his group at the KoM-sprint! He's followed by Nicacio! Will they manage to establish a gap on this strong group?
The KoM-sprint brought the following Top-3-result. Good news for Vosekalns here:
KoM #1 (Cat1)
Adamou
Vosekalns
Pirazzi
And now for some bad news: Ibanez faces a 11'12"-gap on the leading Adamou as he enters the final 18km in a now bigger group of 30 riders (Schwab, Paulinho, Valencia, Vasquez/Ferrari as his most notable companions here).
At least his teammate Beltran is in the first bigger group of favorites by now, which is about 8 minutes ahead.
It's all flat from now on, so let's have a look at which groups pass the final 8km-mark and at which gaps those group are. Starting with the solo-leader, of course:
E1 Adamou
E2/ at 0.51 Piamonte Pirazzi Vosekalns
So Piamonte fought his way back to this group!
E3/ at 2.44 Castano Ospina Nicacio Tatarinov
So Castano and Nicacio managed to create a gap on their former group, joining two of the early escapees now!
E4/ at 3.00 Ardila Affonso
Only a few seconds later, another serious GC-contender (Ardila) managed to establish a gap on further groups!
E5/ at 3.30 Rudaskov Beltran Hasanovic McConvey De Greef Godoy Di Gregorio Rodas Sayar
So a bigger group with some more GC-contenders tries to narrow the gap to group Castano at least, as Adamou actually looks like the certain winner in the meantime!
E6/ at 4.20 Kasa Safarzadeh
Two riders, who may also hope to catch up to the bigger group and with Safarzadeh (GC's 6th) someone, who did quite well so far.
E7/ at 5.00 Rosskopf
The GC's 7th missed the groups in front of him, but he's more than 3 minutes ahead of a next group with some notable names like Fumic, Kulhavy or Duenas/Jeannesson.
Group Ibanez, by the way, is still 11 minutes behind solo-leading Adamou, so we will definitely see a new race-leader today!
And also maybe a huge jump by EUSKATEL Adamou in GC! He fights til the end for an outstanding solo-victory. Just to remember, he was + 5.04 on Ibanez in GC prior to the stage and looking at the gaps a few kilometres back, he could well overtake some names here.
1'09" later, the chasing group of former breakaway companions crosses the line, with Pirazzi and Vosekalns (KoM-leader) completing the podium. Not as dangerous as Adamou for the GC, but all should make a nice jump in GC as well.
Especially as the next group with Castano and Nicacio struggle to work well together. Do they even risk to miss out on the gap they had on the further group(s)? This gap is looking closer now with only 2km remaining..
They maintain a clear gap and finish 3'22" behind Adamou! Tatarinov and Ospina win the sprint, but Castano and also Nicacio will be today's biggest winners of all GC-favorites!
40" later, a group with now 11 riders crosses the line, including names like Beltran, Rodas, De Greef, McConvey and also Ardila, who got swallowed by this group in the meantime.
So group Rosskopf/ Safarzadeh couldn't close the gap and finishes 5'33" behind Adamou. Still fairly good results for most of those names, as Fumic (+ 8.39) and Kulhavy (same time) lost three more minutes!
Several more smaller groups reach the finish now and of course most interesting is group Ibanez/Valencia, which comes in at 11'53" down on Adamou. Other notable names here are Paulinho or Ferrari.
But where's Schwab? The climber loses 13'27" today as 44th. So he either did all his best to support Fumic or simply hadn't the daily form to challenge for more. Anyway, a huge loss for Maloja today.
And a huge result for ONCE this time, as Castano takes over the GC-lead from Ibanez (who drops onto 25th)! His attack late on the climb paid off. Same goes for new 2nd Nicacio (+ 0.23) of course.
Beltran (3rd, + 0.32) did well to defend at least one of his team's three podium-spots and also Rodas (4th, + 0.59) should be considered a winner today. Of course just like Adamou (5th, + 1.01), who makes a huge jump into the Top-5!
Godoy makes his team even more happy (6th, + 1.13), given that he could be one of the strongest in tomorrow's hilly stage. Safarzadeh (12th), Rosskopf (13th), Fumic (19th) and Ibanez/Valenica (25th/26th) drop down in GC, but at least the first two keep in touch with the Top-10.
