Definitely a day for some of the best puncheurs in the world: Hagen, Bakelants, last year's runner-up Ponzi, former winner Trofimov or local hero and former winner Frank Schleck can be considered as the top-favorites.
The wind blows strong in the early hours (42kmh), will it be a factor today?
The first attacks were already the ones, that lead to a 6-men-group going for the break of the day:
Ortega, Zepunkte, Hosek, La Lavandier, Van Goolen, Martens
The group's lead would peak at 9 minutes, with the peloton starting to chase halfway through the race, quickly narrowing this gap..
With now 45km remaining, this gap is down to 2 minutes and we see the first truly notable move out of the peloton:
Van Garderen goes for an early attack, followed by Bakelants!
For a few moments, it looked like the duo could establish a gap, but of course the bunch would try to pull them back..
..which it does 32km before finish, where both the early escapees and VG/Bakelants are reeled in.. the wind, by the way, blows less stronger in the meantime..
..but the action goes on, as Schumacher launches his first move, this time followed by 11 more riders including Bakelants, VG, Hagen or Schleck!
A few seconds later, we see one of those attacking riders hitting the turf! And it can't be true, that it's again Bakelants crashing (like he did last season)... still 30km remaining though, but of course that's a bad moment (well, it's always) to go down..
The latest attacks were empty-handed, as the peloton again would pull this group of top-favorites back.. Aker-MOT now sets the pace at the front of the peloton.
Bakelants did manage to stay in this group, yet trying to fight his way back to the top of the bunch though. Will he suffer from his crash?
19km to go and here's the next serious attempts: Ginanni, Hagen, Van Garderen, Trofimov and Ponzi attack the pack!
15" behind there's a group of 6 riders trying to follow (Gilbert, Valverde, Sinkewitz, Caruso, vd Hugenhaben, Schumacher), while other riders like Schleck, Claeys, Flügel and Bakelants remain the bunch for now..
..but not for too long, as they know this may be a crucial move now: the leading five established a 40"-gap on a new chasing group with 22 riders remaining in the mix for stage, it seems!
Most notable names missing this bigger group: Vanendert, Levarlet/Contador, Schreurs, Klemme and (maybe the most surprising of those) Rui Costa! This would be terrible news for Prio-Porto, if their captain won't manage to fight back.
10km remaining and the chasing groups went into pieces in the meantime, as some riders kept trying to bridge the gap to the leading group:
E1 (5 riders)
+ 0.45
E2 (12)
+ 0.30
E3 (11)
Trofimov
Sanchez Gil
Gastauer
Van Garderen
Claeys
Diggle
Ponzi
Sinkewitz
Fumeaux
Ginanni
Bakelants
Roux
Hagen
Flügel
Zingle
Gilbert
Rovny
Schleck
Vanendert
Schumacher
Levarlet
Valverde
Zakarin
Sagan
Contador
Caruso
Pavarin
vd Hugenhaben
The peloton with Costa is already down by 4'26" on the leading group, so it doesn't really go too well for Costa today.. we haven't seen him crashing or something.
Trofimov attacks the leading group 9km before finish! You may notice the remaining four riders struggling to answer this move yet.. do they shadow each other?
Taking benefit from this "confusion" in group Ponzi/Hagen are both Trofimov (establishing a 55"-gap quickly) and the first chasing group Schleck/Bakelants, which closes up to former leading group soon after Trofimov went clear!
Ponzi won't just sit and wait, but now tries to jump behind Trofimov! Too late or right in time? Less than 8km to go..
At least he managed to drop group Schleck/Hagen and with Trofimov still leading solo, this looks more and more like a fight between him and Ponzi, who narrowed the gap to 20" prior to the finishing climb!
Earlier crashed Bakelants is the one leading the chasing group into the final 3km, but their disadvantage on Trofimov is already at 1'20"!
Back to the front, where Ponzi fights hard to finally close the 18"-gap... just 1.5km remaining though..
Trofimov enters the final km with still a notable gap on Ponzi, who looks quite exhausted already.. the chasing group is definitely too far behind and will "just" battle for the final podium-spot..
And that's something, Schleck definitely wants to achieve again. He launches a late move, followed by Ginanni and Valverde..
56" later, Schleck easily dropped the remaining favorites to complete the podium. He might have underestimated the earlier moves, but at least did well to bring home a podium.
Van Garderen and Ginanni round up the Top-5 ahead of vd Hugenhaben, Flügel, Caruso, Gilbert and Valverde. Quite a huge result for Caruso and his team.
Hagen has to settle for 11th ahead of Sagan and Sanchez Gil, while an unlucky Bakelants comes in as 14th eventually. That's truly tough luck and he definitely might have suffered from his efforts after his crash today..
We haven't seen any incident with Costa involved, but something must have went seriously wrong, as he sits back in the bunch to finish as 113th today. If we missed anything, we're sorry for not giving you any informations. One thing is for sure, it's a horrible result for his team.
