Stage Favourites:

Corioni, Lavoine, Richeze, Grillo & Fonseca

Without doubt Schoonbroodt would be the star of the break today. He would go 1st through all intermediate sprint points and claim enough KOM points to move into the KOM jersey.



Will Ford goes down with 32 KM to go. He would not make it back to the peloton.



AMEXpc, Team Hornbach and Venchi - Ferranti are the teams doing all of the chasing, hoping to set up a sprint.

With 11 KM to go only Schoonbroodt survives ahead of the depleted peloton.

Of the 44 riders dropped Barrio is the biggest name. His feint GC hopes going up in smoke.



Schoonbroodt, puts in a good ride, would be caught and a sprint would decide stage 1.


400 meters to go.

< 200 meters to go.

Kump, Gavazzi and Corioni lead the race.


< 100 meters to go.

With their leaders nowhere to be seen, Kump and Gavazzi, the lead-out men, realize they are sprinting against each other for the stage win and have to kick again.



Victory for AMEXpc. Victory for Kump. A strange scenario sees the Slovenian take the win. He is a capable in the hills so expect him to put up a good fight on stage 2.

Gavazzi and Corioni round out the podium with no other sprinter really in the mix. Ignatiev was right up there in 4th, he just misses out on bonus seconds. Does this indicate a weak sprinter line-up or a strong Ignatiev?