Last chance for the sprinters to get their win. Nizzolo is out, Impey has a stage win already. All others surely going to be very motivated here. Fablok with Lavoine/Drujon might make it a triple.
10 riders in a breakaway on such a short stage is a huge danger for the sprinters. Jurco Vink Walker Gerdemann Hofland Kulppi Delgerbayar Hamilton Le Gac Mazur
Kenya Airways has some support today. Novatek and Fablok are seen at the front just like 1 rider for Vontobel. The gap stays at around 2min for quite a while now.
With 8km to go the peloton is just behind and soon to catch the break.
But then Walker with a strong attack improving the pace in front while the peloton had a short moment of slower pace when all sprinters looked for their sprint trains. Close one today.
The trains are formed now and it`s just a 30s gap to the front.
Matysiak
Drujon
Lang
Lavoine
Räim
Marcato
Velits
Impey
Mezgec
Matthews
Serebriakov
Avila
Grillo
Reimer
Ulanowski
Gavazzi
1,5km and despite the fact that the group is still a bit ahead, the sprinters not starting early. Drujon ahead of Lavoine now but Marcato and Impey are closing, while the Novatek train is a bit blocked now.
Hamilton must be frustrated. Instead of a top5-7 he is 46th in the GC due to some late issue on stage 4. The Canadian goes into the lead now challenging Jurco and Kulppi at the moment. Gerdemann a little bit behind also fast.
Almost no chance to identify the riders now. Breakaway and sprinters are completely mixed as the by far faster sprinters reach the breakaway with still 500m to go.
Hamilton though with a small gap now aiming a nice replacement of his missed GC result.
The first sprinters have caught basically all breakaway riders but Hamilton.
Drujon in 2nd position now next to Gerdemann.
Impey and Serebriakov just behind next to Kulppi and Jurco.
The winner though is Nic Hamilton! Again the sprinter teams failed to catch the break in time while the Canadian not only taking a huge result here but also gets a top30 result in the end due to bonus seconds.
Behind him in 2nd a small surprise. Drujon wins the sprint instead of his actual leader Lavoine. So Fablok came really close to a triple stage win. Impey as 3rd with 8 more bonus seconds. This is not enough to jump another GC spot though.
Serebriakov just off the podium today, while it`s good to see that Amex` co-sprinter Grillo delivers them a decent 7th today as backup for injured Nizzolo.
Without any big GC changes Di Maggio takes the first stace race of the season and starts in the best possible way for his new Vontobel team. Reimer and Ventoso follow on the podium and also celebrate a nice team debut. Actually the complete top8 are new team riders!
Point jersey well deserved to Impey, who was most consistent. KoM to Rossetto, who wore it since the first KoM. So nice result for Kenya with 2 jerseys.
U25 goes to Prevar and team ranking is won by Nutresa thanks to Del Nero and Klemme.
