There is plenty of interest in the morning breakaway, with 12 riders fighting to stay amongst the winning attempt: Slagter Brambilla Fraile Moreno Pichon Faiers Boom Stybar Gusev Dees Roux Caruso
So, as you may have figured already, this is a very powerful group, especially with the likes of Brambilla and Faiers posing a serious threat for the stage.
The weakest riders start to suffer on the first half of the Joux Plane: Pichon, Boom, Caruso and Roux lose contact as Mudarra attacks from the pack in a courageous attempt to bridge up the gap to the front. He's facing a 2'45 deficit by this point.
The peloton strats desintegrating on this 2nd climb already. Only 92 riders are able to follow Metinvest's pace, as we witness the formation of a good number of groupettos already.
We start climbing la Ramaz with the peloton 5min behind the front men. The selection continues as more riders are left behind; among them, Ignatiev struggles. The russian was sure to lose his jersey today, and now we have the confirmation. Volkswagen as taken the lead of the pack now.
The break reaches the top of la Ramaz where Fraile takes maximum points. It's been Brambilla and Slagter doing most of the work there and who have gathered the most points so far with the Spaniard having attacked close to the top.
But wait! There's movement at the back! An acceleration from Pozzovivo breaks the peace in the peloton with still 65km to go! He's followed by Wellens, Suaza, Schleck and Kritskiy!
Roche tries to react a bit later, while Taramaae is doing the chasing in the pack.
But other riders seem to be struggling at the back!! Kohl, Keizer, Shikai, Keinath and Elissonde are losing contact already. This could be really bad for them!
On the descent the attackers are caught though, and truth is reinstalled. Bad news at the front though, with Faiers and Gusev falling and getting caught.
As we're about to tackle the Joux Plane for the 2nd time today, the race situation has completely changed. All escapees have been caught and there is now a main group of 25 riders containing all GC men except for the ones distanced in the previous climb + Aru, Preidler, Hisrchlein and Kirsch who lost contact on the descent. These are 50'' in arrears and there is another group with 50'' plus chasing them. We witness another breakaway attempt as we pass the intermediate sprint with Vasyliv and Geniez in it. 14km uphill now.
Nothing of note actually happens during this climb, as everyone seems looking to be saving themselves for Avoriaz. The two attackers were caught and some of the early escapees were dropped.
Here's the race situation:
Main group - 1'30 - Kirsch/Aru/Hirschlein group - 1'17 - Keizer - 3'00 - Keinath/Preidler/ElissondeShikai group
Pretty huge gaps already for the ones left behind early...
Anyway, it seems we're facing a rather quiet descent now befor...Wait a minute! It's another attack! This time it's Sicard, and he's going downhill at full gas!! Can he surprise everyone with this move?!
Wow what a gap!! The rest of the group seems to have taken the cautious aproach to the descent, but this has led to a 2min difference to appear to the frenchmen!! There are only 12km to the line now, it's not going to be easy to deter the homeboy now!
Brandle continues pacing for a while before someone finally decides to agitate things again. And it's...erm... Vasyliv! The german seems to be in the form of his life!
Ratiy is the only one giving him a chase and forms a duo with the Festina man.
Pozzovivo is not going to allow this though, as he catches them both with 10km to go. But hey wake up guys, you're losing this!!
Oh but 3km later, Ratyi pays a nasty price for his endeavours and loses contact as the italian continues to do all the work in the main group. Still no attacks from the favourites though.
Lecuisinier is the next to lose contact with the group with 6km to go.
The eleven men chasing the leader of the stage are: Taramaae Wellens Schleck Suaza Pozzovivo Kritskiy Nibali Faiers Gesink Roche Guldhammer
They trail by 1'40 with only 4km to the finish.
Oh but it's Taramaae, the defending champion, who finally decides to pounce! The 2 Vesuvio riders immediately react, while Pozzovivo and Gesink try to follow them
This really shows how fatigued everyone was. Suaza though seems incredibly fit as he even seems to be distancing both Schleck and Taramaae! Sicard's advantage has shrinked considerably, and he only has 35'' to his closest chasers!
But nobody is going to catch the french! Terrific victory for Orange. We're not given a victory salute, but his manager should be extremely proud of this amazing victory!!
Suaza takes some bonifications to himself as Taramaae steals 3rd from Schleck.
Pozzovivo arives in 4th before the rest of the group comes in. Guldhammer as lost quite a bit in the end, perhaps due to his exploits last stage.
So, who’s going to wear the yellow jersey tomorrow? The sensational Jaime Suaza! That’s right. His team leader may not be too content with this outcome, but I’m sure SN won’t be too unhappy with a temporary 1-2 in the GC. Along with Pozzovivo we’re bound to see a trio of pure climbers trying to fend off, the defending champion, Rein Taramaae. An exciting TT is in store for tomorrow.
On the other side of the spectrum, the time limit was too much for an impressive number of riders. There were neither random abandons nor crashes leading to abandons, so this list of DNFs is solely due to incapability:
Dimitri Champion Luca Ascani Mathieu Bernaudeau Andrei Nechita Niels Scheunemann Steven Burke Sonny Colbrelli Adrien Petit Kenneth Vanbilsen Andres Ignacio Pereyra Fumiyuki Beppu Vojtech Hacecký Shane Archbold Miles Olman Ivan Kovalev Lucas Schadlich Pim Ligthart Wen Hao Li Kristof Goddaert Sean Downey Frederik Frison Kevin Predatsch Michael Valgren Andersen Kiril Yatsevich Silvan Dillier Karel Hnik Panagiotis Vlatos
