The last flat stage and it's the most challenging: the circuit through Surrey will surely hurt some pure sprinters' legs more than in the two other flat stages. And those six mountain sprints may give someone the opportunity to keep the fight for the KoM competition alive.
Anyway, we have the usual crosswinds for this week in here in western Canada and the favorites for the stage remain the same as in the other flat stages: guardini and bouhanni as the winning sprinters so far, while silvestre and moser will hope for the top podium spot as well.
Like yesterday, the break of the day is formed quickly and this time, we have 8 riders in the group:
moscon (kom 2 with 21pts) mollema craven (kom 10 with 6pts) denz stöhr sipos kanepejs sipos
A big opportunity for moscon to claim the lead in the kom rankings (yet already wearing the kit instead of race leader amador). With six mountain sprints up for grabs, this is his last opportunity to gain as much as points as possible with tomorrow's big summit finish on mt seymour probably favoring amador and the other gc contenders.
He's not as dominating as we might have hoped for: 3rd at the first sprint, 2nd at the second and third, pointless at the fourth sprint, finally 1st at the fifth and 3rd at the last sprint:
provisional kom
#
rider
pts
1
moscon
34
2
amador
32
3
craven
21
So it's at least the kom lead for one day, but moscon would need amador to fail tomorrow. Or a breakaway to steal all points at the summit. But for now, it's his shirt at the end of the day.
But back to the question, whether the breakaway will stand a chance or not today. It's the well known teams trying to control the race, but today, it's mainly haute route and indosaat pulling the bunch into the final 30km of the race.
signorini at the front pacing, as the breakaway has a 1'20" advantage at this point with now 28km remaining. The mission for indosaat is clear: to finally get a stage-win for moser here.
15km left and as said before, the crosswinds are once again a factor here in Vancouver: 56kmh at this moment, where we see a split in the peloton with just 100 riders remaining in the front group. Amongst the riders in the first bigger group being dropped, we notice some notable names:
Those riders won't make it back to the pack und they will definitely lose a few minutes in this fast race now.
The breakaway still holds on to a minute advantage over the peloton, by the way!
And it's looking pretty good for the escapees: under the 5km mark, the group is still about 50 seconds ahead of the chasing pack, which struggles to finally close up.
craven as the first to sense a chance here, attacking from the leading group with quite an impressive acceleration!
haute route setting a train for keukeleire
berg cycles setting a train for silvestre
indosaat with two guys supporting moser
and some other sprinters hanging around: pelucchi, king, park and manarelli
1.6km left for craven, who's joined by denz now! The duo with a 27" gap on their former breakaway companions, who are now just 25" ahead of the peloton! This will become a close one, but craven/denz will surely fancy their chances to fool the sprinters today!
That's a long way to go for those sprinters though, where barbari is the last man for keukeleire and moser moving forward. Also silvestre with still some support, while we see meyer and aregger as the most notable names joining the "party".
anton martin as the euskaltel rider there and there's no sign of guardini or bouhanni being capable to become a factor here yet.
While craven and denz are approaching the finish still head-to-head, the sprinters are still on it and as they launched their finishing kicks, the first riders catch up to the remaining escaping group:
silvestre, keukeleire, pelucchi, manarelli and moser in the most promising positions, aregger a bit further behind but fast now.
The stage-win though seems to be decided between craven and denz, who are shoulder to shoulder with only few metres to go! This will be a thrilling finish, as both are equally fast at this point.
Their former breakaway companions are still a in the mix for a notable stage result, but the sprinters have already caught a few of them and opposing to craven/denz, those few guys ahead of the pack are totally exhausted now..
It's a photo finish between the leading duo and what a tight decision it has been! Eventually though, the photo is clear enough and today's winner raises his arms, as he already felt like he had done it:
denz takes the stage ahead of craven! What a result for the young german, who was strong enough to respond on craven's strong attack in the final 5km. Once he caught up, the two delivered the spectators a thrilling sprint to the line, where denz had the happy end then. Great stuff.
The other escapees indeed got swallowed by today's best sprinters, who will fight for the final podium spot: moser, keukeleire, aregger, manarelli and pelucchi in the prime positions..
..and the 3rd place goes to moser, who narrowly beats keukeleire and silvestre! The three top sprinters, who had missed out on a great result so far. Quite annoying for moser, that he has to settle for a 3rd place instead of the stage win, that he was aiming for.
The Top-10 are completed by manarelli, aregger, pelucchi, king and park, while guardini (16) and bouhanni (68) couldn't compete today. That's good for amador, as he still leads the points ranking (50pts), now ahead of moser (44) and silvestre (40).
As for the dropped riders, rojas villegas (+ 1.47) and group ji/kozhatayev/poljanski (+ 3.19) lost valuable time today. Those guys drop down to something around 50-60 in the gc with this losses.
Big day for denz, who can celebrate an unexpected victory in such an iconic race on the PCT calendar.
Also moscon will be happy to claim the kom lead for one day. With 34pts, he's just 2pts ahead of amador though. Tomorrow's summit finish on mt seymour will probably be tough for moscon to defend the shirt until the end, but at least there's a tiny chance.
No bigger changes in the gc except of those names already mentioned, so amador will enter the mountain stage with a minute on nazaret and also shikai, úran and intxausti still in contention for the top gc spots.
