Opening stage in Slovenie and it should be for the sprinters. With 4 longer hills though it might exhaust some of them a bit.
4 riders in todays break: Dibben Keller Umerbekov Polanc
Interesting group as Lierse (Pelucchi), Gatorade (King), Actavis (Kuboki) and BelarusBank (Clarke) all have a sprinter here. Also Umerbekov as pretty good puncheur could become a danger in the GC when allowing a gap today.
Mainly Indosat and Alpina are working behind. Also Novatek at times. With Kruopis, Forero and Serebriakov they might have the 3 most complete sprinters in the field.
8km left and the gap to the break is down to 25s only.
The sprint trains are forming as the group was caught a bit later. Some sprinters like Volikakis are dropped at this points due to the hills. So surely all other (a bit stronger) sprinters are also influenced by those.
Weber
Rodriguez Parra
Forero
Popov
Pelucchi
Pozdnyakov
Choe
Belletti
Serebriakov
Uchima
Nielsen
Kruopis
Kuboki
Bole
The Alpina train clearly the weakest, while the punchy sprinters Uchima and Popov/Pozdnyakov bring their leader in the best position. As Novatek with still 3 riders look the strongest Kuboki quickly follows them while most others are still behind Forero.
Kruopis now in the win while Serebriakov and Kuboki are in the perfect position with still a rider ahead.
Forero needs to go the long way followed by Pelucchi and Belletti
Serebriakov possibly struggling after the hills the most of those in front. His team mate and leadout still going as strong while Kruopis and Kuboki challenge them a lot.
From behind surprisingly it`s Belletti coming the fastest while also Bole shows up in the mix behind Pelucchi.
In the end easy win for Kuboki. He adds another stage win to his seasonand takes the GC lead tomorrow.
Belleti in the end surprisingly passing all others to take 2nd ahead of Kruopis, who stayed ahead of the next.
Pelucchi as 4th yet another rider with a late sprint while Serebriakov as 5th just ahead of Bole.
Forero couldn`t reach more than 9th today, while Favilli as 16th probably should have placed himself a bit better, which also counts for his team mate Canola (25.), Davis (27.), King (32.) or Morkov (33.).
