A plain flat stage coming up today before tomorrow’s TT. Favourites are the usual suspects, yesterday’s winner and points jersey holder Van Stayen, stage 1 winner Kennaugh, alongside the likes of Holloway, Guardini, Keukeleire and Groenewegen.
After several failed attempts, a group of 3 manages to escape: 3 interesting men in Terpstra, Bouet and Verona compose it, and that is also the order they get past the first TV sprint of the day.
With 95 to go and an advantage of 4 minutes and a half on the pack, Terpstra also takes the first and only KoM sprint of the day ahead of the French. The maximum advantage will be hit later on, amounting to 5 minutes and a half, that however will start going down quickly.
40 to go and Bouet is in front of Terpstra in the last intermediate sprint of the day. Evonik are trying to get the gap down, and they're doing so steadily as it falls below the 3 minutes mark now.
Fast forward to just 6 to go and the sprinters' teams mission seems a tad harder right now. Bouet decides to go the whole hog on his own from the break, leaving the others on themselves. The pack, where Red Bull, Orange and Evonik are trying their best, is almost 30 seconds behind.
It's gonna be very close with Bouet still going very strong at the 3 km to mark. Clearly, it's going to be either him or a sprinter, with both Terpstra and Verona close to getting swallowed by the peloton...
...which obviously happens just a couple of hundreds of meters later. In the front, Evonik has formed 2 trains, probably involuntarily. Van Stayen is on Bogdanovics' wheel on the extreme left, with Keukeleire following him. Close to them is Orange's train with Kennaugh with still 2 men and Aregger behind him. Holloway only has Brus to help him on the right of the screen, and Guardini is marking him closely.
Bouet's glory only lasts until 1 km and a half later, but then the sprinters' trains catch him too. Props for a good attempt anyway, however.
Keukeleire in his Belgian NC jersey has decided to go before anyone else, trying to anticipate the likes of Van Stayen and Kennaugh, who look a bit boxed, and without any help by their teammates. Dakteris and Moser were close to the front and now try to keep up with Keukeleire.
Most have gotten past the 1 km to go mark by now, but the 3 in the front still seem to be going very strong, all pretty much at the same speed.
Behind them, Pedersen, Van Stayen, Holloway, Guardini, Stepniak, W.Kreder, Kennaugh and Meyer are also trying to sprint for a podium.
The 3 fade away with a few meters to go, and Van Stayen with a powerful few pedal strokes on his saddle suddenly finds himself slightly in front of everyone else. But nothing is defined yet, with so many sprinters close to each other. Notably, Kennaugh, Holloway and Guardini are very much still in contention.
But it's gonna be Van Stayen keeping up his position in the front, even finally managing to raise his hands to the air comfortably! Holloway beats both Kennaugh and Guardini to the line for 2nd place, all 3 being really close to each other.
Right behind them for 5th we find yesterday's runner-up Kreder, ahead of Lay, Stepniak, Meyer, Keukeleire, and Aregger who rounds off the first 10 positions.
Groenewegen is close to a top 10, but no cigar: it's been a mildly disappointing Swiss campaign for him so far.
Stage Results:Note: Export didn't work, only top 25
