Time for the climbers again, as we are heading for another key stage before tomorrow's TTT: today's stage through North Vancouver features a summit finish on mt seymour. A challenging climb, which has often produced some thrilling gc battles in the previous editions of the race.
Race leader amador took the first two mountain stages (a prologue and the stage up the Cypress), so he will obviously be the man to beat today. A strong nazaret as his biggest threat, but also shikai, intxausti and úran are still within striking distance, if amador will show any kind of weakness on this climb.
The stage kicks off with an early intermediate sprint and guardini is at it, which makes him jump onto a provisional 3rd in the points classification. No chance for him to improve further, but at least there's a chance to finish ahead of some climbers eventually.
So quite a solid breakaway and with moscon, we have the kom leader in here. His mission should be clear: with no mountain sprint except of those points rewarded at the summit finish, there's only a succesful breakaway that may prevent amador from scoring those 3pts he would need to overtake moscon in the mountain classification. So why not being part of a breakaway, that could possibly finish ahead of the big guns?
With jeannesson, stetina and iturria (also fighting for a notable u25 result), there are few more names, who could potentially benefit from a strong result on this stage.
The peloton seems to be aware of those minor threats and keeps the gap around 2 minutes for the entire stage. It's pretty unlikely, that the early break will hold off the gc guns at this pace, but of course, anything is still possible.
44km to go now, the peloton is currently 2'20" in arrears, as we see a rider trying to bridge across the breakaway:
belkov (gc 17, + 5.15) tries to break clear!
A short-lived attempt though, as the peloton (led by ubs and minions) keep controlling the race and pull him back quickly.
We're now entering the final climb up mt seymour, 11km remaining:
iturria attacks the leading group, followed by stetina!
The other escapees can't react and moscon already got dropped a few kilometres before. The peloton is now just 1'32" behind the new leading duo.
And here's the peloton a minute later, at the same point:
kudus attacks! The Eritrean definitely has to bounce back from his struggles on the Cypress stage and currently sitting 12th in the gc (and 3rd in the u25 category), there's still something to gain on this challenging climb today.
intxausti quickly tries to follow and so the battle between the big names is on!
The duo opened up a small gap and so it's time for the other gc contenders to react:
amador nazaret roglic
as the next favorites to accelerate and the peloton goes into pieces!
There's another group a few seconds behind, featuring
úran eastman van den broeck
while shikai and marquez are the biggest names to not have followed yet. They are currently already one and a half minute behind group amador/nazaret!
kudus keeps putting the pressure up and intxausti couldn't follow! The Eritrean flies past the breakaway duo iturria/jeannesson and storms towards a solo-lead with now 7km to go.
28" behind, there's a group with amador, roglic, intxausti, nazaret and four of the early break
A next group with eastman furhter 40" behind, a group with úran/van den broeck and now also shikai and marquez another 26" in arrears..
kudus quickly growing the gap to 40" and now it's amador breaking clear from the chasing group!
roglic jumping behind, while the four early escapees are dropped by intxausti and nazaret..
5km to go and kudus still with his gap on amador, who's now joined by roglic indeed.
intxausti/nazaret 32" behind roglic..
..while shikai accelerated, trying to bridge across intxausti/nazaret!
marquez also on the attack, just like eastman. This group with úran/van den broeck/ratiy has become bigger in the meantime and with already two minutes off kudus, it's definitely time for those gc contenders to do something.
3km remaining: kudus going strong, but amador/roglic has teamed up and keep the gap at something around 25 seconds now.
nazaret/intxausti further 47" behind, with shikai still trying to catch up to the duo..
úran (gc 4) finally with his first real move, he still got 4km to go. eastman and marquez managed to break clear from his group earlier on, so he has to put up a big fight now. It's pretty obvious, that he ain't good enough to battle for the gc podium today, though.
kudus enters the final km and he's still 19" ahead of amador/roglic!
nazaret dropped intxausti, who's really suffering now! A strong shikai keeps making up ground and accelerates. It seems like he can at least attack nazaret this way!
marquez going past intxausti and then there's úran, who went past eastman easily. The latter now in front of a bigger group with van den broeck, ratiy, costagli, ji, brenes and chiarello.
A few hundred metres to go and kudus ain't looking as good as his two main chasers!
roglic impressively strong, as he opens up a small gap to amador when kicking off his sprint!
Oh, this may be a tough one for kudus, as roglic quickly bridges across him with still a few metres to go..
..and he takes the stage: roglic outsprints kudus on the final metres of the stage! A huge stage for roglic, who already rode an aggressive stage two days ago and who timed his sprint perfectly today. That will surely lift him up the gc podium battle here.
Unfortunate finish for kudus, who put up a huge performance on this climb as well. Attacking early and holding off amador until the end, he missed out on a stage-win so close, that it will hurt eventually. But obviously, it's still a great result, that will surely improve his chances to finish high in the gc.
+ 0.22 amador, succesfully defending yellow
+ 0.36 shikai, succesfully defending his u25 lead
+ 0.50 nazaret, who's been strong once again
+ 1.00 marquez and úran
úran had a strong final few kilometres here, but surely went too late. No huge time losses and the good news, he eventually finished ahead of intxausti..
+ 1.32 intxausti
A tough finish for intxausti, who looked strong earlier in the climb. He then cracked in the final 1.5km and lost quite some time on nazaret/shikai.
+ 2.03 eastman, brenes, chiarello
A group with van den broeck/ratiy at 2.44 then, another one with shirota at 3.01 and with ji/costagli/samwel at 3.40.
amador not only leading the gc, but also the points and kom rankings thanks to his result today. He lost some time on roglic though, who moves up to an impressive 2nd place (1.40 on amador) with his huge stage-win today. Still an open battle for this runner-up spot, as nazaret (1.43) is only three seconds behind roglic as 3rd. Tomorrow's TTT is probably too short to attack amador, but generali/roglic will fancy their chances to hold off berg cycles/nazaret.
shikai's strong performance puts him in podium contention with 2.06 on amador and 23 seconds on nazaret. úran (2.31) dropping to 5th ahead of intxausti (3.04). The strong output from kudus makes him move to 7th (3.22) ahead of marquez, eastman and a third berg rider with chiarello to sit on 10th.
The rather short TTT (18km) probably won't produce huge gaps, but there's still some interesting battles in the gc. But one thing is almost certain: amador will have a big overall result here, leading three classifications with already two stage-wins and one of the best TTT setups tomorrow.
