This is the only stage which will be posted today.
Today's stage seems rather harmless. It's just 137 km long, and the most of the way it's going downhill. On the last meters, it does elevate, but I certainly doubt that it will cause the sprinters, including Sonnery, any trouble. That said, it is an ideal place to attack for riders dreaming of an easy stage win
With the stage being this short it didn't take long for the first riders to attack. Only problem was that we only had three 'real' riders in the tv-break of the day. These were Nydam of Slipstream, Lefevre of British Airways and Wren of American Suzuki. The rest of the riders were Ullrich, Retired-guy, Prudhomme, McQuaid, Together, they easily established a gap, and a few moments later there was just 100 km left of he stage, and with the break having 4'21 to the peloton which funnily enough wasn't led by the leading team, Dasani, but by Fed-Ex and Benfica.
With 80 km left, Dasani did start to get worried, though. In the break, we had Lefevre who's just 3'06 behind in the overall classement. At this point they had a gap of 5'47 to close. And what seemed funny was that no other teams really seemed interested in helping out. At this screenshot, you can see how the peloton really is only led by one man. It didn't seem to have any influence, though, as the gap started decreasing. 10 km later, it's down to 4'07.
Luckily for Dasani, they did eventually get help from an alliance of Fed-Ex and Fed-Ex B. And in the front of the peloton, it started getting 'tricky' - they were slowly getting caught, some riders were starting to skiip taking relays, and this had to end. Nydam took the first step by attacking from the group, and he was immediately followed by Wren. Soon after, Lefevre followed up.
It ended up with Lefevre and Nydam forming a group while the rest were caught by the peloton with less than 18 kilometers to go. At the same time, the stage finally started going uphill. Maybe, something were going to happen now?
Well, attacks weren't going to come, it seemed. Instead, the peloton were going really fast to catch Nydam and Lefevre, who with just 8 km to go still had 1 minute to the peloton. For some reason, though, they had stopped working together, and the break seemed doomed to death -- but then again, the finish did get closer and closer. Here we are with 6 km to go, still a gap of 1 minute.
With 5 km to go, Lefevre decided to stick to Nydam's wheel, hoping he would bring him to goal safely and with an easy win. In the peloton, the sprint trains started forming. 2.5 km left, and the break is still ahead of the P -- and the sprint is off. In front, we have Eibegger leading out for green jersey holder Sonnery. Behind him, it's Bacquet of Dasani, then Bertagnolli leading out for Gajek and Velo leading out for Faria. But as said, we still have Nydam and Lefevre in front.
And here we have them. Lefevre has completely given up, and Sonnery is now getting closer to Nydam. It's still Bacquet behind him, and further behind we have Gajek, De Fauw, Siedler and Faria.
But it's a very easy victory for Sonnery who once again demonstrated that he's the fastest sprinter of this tour.
And a 2nd place for Siedler, followed up by third for Bacquet of Dasani.
I also noticed that Martinez De Estaban, Wiggle, current 10th place, came in a bit after the peloton. It will be interesting to see if he has lost time.
(The stage result showed that even more time gaps were registered. Therefore, the full stage result is posted)
