5th and penultimate stage for a GC attack. The longest final climb. Also pretty steep but not the most climbs before.
7 riders in the break, yet again with stage racers Keizer Van den Broeck Samwel
who aim the KoM jersey. Squire Cuming Lebas Bevin
the others.
Keizer again stronger as Van den Broeck on the climbs and taking the Cat.1 and two of the Cat.3`s whereas VdB only takes one of those Cat.3s and hence losing some ground on the Dutch.
After those mountain chain those two alongside Samwel are the only remaining in the break. 2'40 for them.
1/3 up the final climb and Keizer takes the Cat.1 with VdB and Samwel behind.
Quintana and Faiers next after attacking while Barguil and Konrad get points while working.
It`s getting steeper now and Keizer is solo. 45s already to VdB/Samwel.
Another 1'40 to Quintana with Faiers 35s behind him. Then 1'30 to the peloton, a total of 4'30.
Barguil and Solis are working but they only do a minimum at the moment as their energy seems to be rather low already. They keep the gap to Keizer at 4min but not going faster. Hence still 40 riders in the favourite group.
Meanwhile Quintana up to the VdB/Samwel duo and looking strongest of those 3. Less than 5km and they have a 2min gap to Keizer.
Faiers is 1'45 behind with the peloton another minute.
Once Barguil and Solis faded it`s Madrazo taking the lead and goes a few km/h faster. Behind him all the top GC riders.
They quickly passed Faiers. Then the trio around Quintana! Suddenly they were going a lot faster than most of the climb.
Dombrowski and Madrazo look best with Tenorio, Spilak, Taaramae and Alarcon being just behind. Then a bit of a gap with Morton and Uran looking also a bit ahead of the rest.
Keizer`s advantage dropped to 90s! But just 1,8km to go.
Dombrowski and Madrazo still taking care for the high pace and with a bit more than 1km to go they are up to Keizer.
Behind Tenorio, Spilak, Taaramae and Alarcon try to keep up with them.
Flamme Rouge. All in one group. Then Uran/Morton and a bit behind Quintana ahead of the remaining favourites.
Keizer struggling was obvious but also Taaramae having problems here.
Spilak/Tenorio/Alarcon on a similar level and maybe a little bit behind Madrazo/Dombrowski today.
Dombrowski forces the others to follow when starting the sprint.
It`s about avoiding a gap now and in especially Taaramae is looking in danger to lose his lead to Madrazo here.
Madrazo goes around Dombrowski in the fight for the stage while only Alarcon could still attack them it seems.
But it`s Madrazo being fastest in the end. 1 bike length ahead of Dombrowski and another to Alarcon.
Tenorio and Spilak next and all the same time.
Taaramae is given a 23s gap and hence is losing the GC lead after one day.
Morton and Uran next at +57s and Keizer at 1'15. Also he was not able to get enough KoM points with 9th of the day and hence VdB remains in the KoM jersey and we might see those two fighting again tomorrow as it`s just 5 points dividing them and ~30 to the next.
Velits with a bit over 2min ahead of Keizer at 2'20. Then a group around Henao Montoya, Contador, Cattaneo at 2'32.
Kirsch losing 4'33 just like Talansky with Keinath/Faiers at 6'25.
Also a few more OTL today. Less than on the other two stages though.
