Possibly the hardest stage of the race. At least the amount of hills is the most and relax times in between are a lot shorter!
Hence for all puncheurs, that want the pdoium, top5 or at least a top10, this is your chance.
Ricco and Cunego obviously are within the top favourites as well and seeing the tiny gap in between them in the fight for the GC win, it could be thrilling as well. It`s just 6s!
A group of 6 riders in the breakaway and no surprise to see Khederi and Othman being two of them trying to secure the KoM jersey. Later with 42 points in the lead while the Eritel rider is at 26 points. Five Cat.3 climbs though offer a total of 30 points!
Kratochvila as 23rd the best placed in the GC. Godoy Sisira Cuasquer
And it`s a great start for Khederi taking the maximum points at the first!
In especially as Othman seems to suffer today! He can`t even follow the other 4 and is not getting any points early on. Down to 10 points the difference!
We have seen this before. Euskaltel being pretty active and suddenly Tamayo Martinez and Prades were too fast for most of the peloton. Just their leader Valls, GC leader Ricco and runner-up Cunego behind them.
Meiji and Shimano working behind trying to close the gap again. Apparently Kiserlovski is supposed to try something today and indeed just 1km later they merge again.
Also Othman is back in the peloton! Not his day! Not yet in the peloton though are Craven, Teklehaimanot, Landa, Barrio and Goncalves. All are in a 20 rider group about 1min behind the 44 rider peloton.
Not even half time and so many riders are dropped already.
Teklehaimanot is having a bad day clearly. Though with 65km to go he decides to go solo chasing the now 31 rider peloton! This means Craven, Landa, Barrio and most recently also a group around Redecker, Gallopin, Othman and Mendes couldn`t follow and are behind him.
While this is awful news for Eritel at least Khederi was able to also take KoM 2 and 3 being now in the provisional KoM lead.
Teklehaimanot is up to ~1'40 behind the peloton! And it`s 30km since he started the solo!
He has a bit of support now as Rodrigues is with him now after not being able to follow the high pace of the better puncheurs in the peloton! his top10 in big danger now. Kadri for Novatek still in the group though! The Vontobel rider is Weiss, so no worry, both Cataldo and Wyss also still in the peloton!
4th KoM and Khederi definitely has the jersey now. Once more taking the top points with Sisira and Kratochvila following.
Those 3 also the last remaining of the brek being 2min ahead of the 28 rider peloton with 27km to go.
Incredible performance by Euskaltel. With 3 riders they keep a high pace in the favourite group making it almost impossible to attack and slowly dropping one rider after another.
Surprisingly Anuar Aziz is one of the most recent riders losing contact!
Also Konovalovas, Schelling, Mestre, Uchima, Augustyn and Kadri! So it`s 18 riders only left.
And after catching the 3 breakaway riders with ~18km to go the situation calmed down for a moment with Euskaltel controlling.
Though at the 13km finish passing the big favourite attacks: Kinoshita has to gain lots of time to get a valuable GC position and this is his chance.
Next to Tamayo Martinez and Prades also Meintjes comes to the front in the U25 jersey chasing for GC leader Ricco.
Cunego, Hatanaka, Valls, Ricco, Kiserlovskia, Scarponi!, Cataldo, Bibby, Van der Hugenhaben, Wyss, Betancourt in this order in the group with the former break only haning on.
The gap still goes up and Kinoshita already has 40s with 9km to go!
Time for others to accelerate. It`s Cunego and Valls first passing a dropped rider here!
Then 22s behind a group of 7 including Ricco. Right now Cunego in the virtual lead! Pressure on Telkom but good to have Meintjes also in that group! But impressive to see both Euskaltel helpers also going strong.
The climbers Ji, Kiserlovski start to struggle as also Cataldo and Betancourt! Though Wyss in that group at least supporting his leader while Schelling is not giving up yet trying to rejoin them.
And suddenly the TV cameras switch back to Schelling. And no other than Ricco with him!
What happened? Race radio talks about a crash and the GC leader in huge problems now being only in the 5th group. Even 30s behind the Ji/Kiserlovski one.
Telkom decides to go the double GC leader way though and is not sending Meintjes back. As top10 rider himself he stays in the Bibby/Hugenhaben group, which is losing ground though on Valls/Cunego.
Cunego also heard about the big chances to take over the GC lead and accelerates again. He is dropping Valls and chasing Kinoshita now. Though it`s just a bit more than 1km and he is still 40s off.
Hence the Meiji rider with a nice win. And seeing todays gap he is also moving up massively in the GC.
Cunego 2nd and easily takes the GC lead! Not the best way to do it but in fact he was already virtual leader prior the crash!
Valls also thanks to his team mates in 3rd. Fantastic result This way also secures the podium. 1'49 today behind Kinoshita means he stayed 15s ahead of him in the GC. Right now the Meiji rider could make a podium here depending on the next riders finishing. In especially Ricco of course.
Bibby winning another sprint and hence staying in the point jersey. 4th today 3'35 down already! Kinoshita secured 3rd now in the GC!
Behind Bibby the next Meiji rider in Hatanaka. Brilliant team performance. Might even go up into top10 as well!
Hugenhaben and Meintjes next 22s later. Both will stay in the top10 being 6th and 7th.
Poor Ricco. He fought well and passes many riders but such late crash is never good. 9th of the day still but dropping down to 4th in the GC...finishing in 8th is Ji. Third Meiji rider already! And also 3 Meijis indeed in the top10 now!
With the two Euskaltel helpers next, the likes of Cataldo, Kiserlovski, Betancourt, Scarponi come in +6'37. Hence lose a bit but at least Cataldo remains in the top10 GC while the others are just outside.
Last but not least lots of abandons due to the time limit incl. former GC hope Slagter...and GC leader Dal Coll.
