The tour is now heading for Russia, where the first of four flat road stages will be held on a circuit in and around St Petersburg. At 160km, it's one of the shortest stages with also no minor difficulties.
Cavendish as the biggest threat for GC leader Vermote. Van Asbroeck and Rowe as yesterday's best sprinters behind Cavendish, but there's several possible contenders like defending race champion Lo Cicero, Kennaugh, Vantomme, Appollonio, Guerao, Goss, Nelson or Holloway.
A hectical begin into the stage with a few empty-handed breakaway attempts:
#1: Zaraliev, Jeandesbosz, Jiang, Uchima, Terpstra, Krigbaum
#2: Uchima (with a long lasting attempt), Fominykh, Krigbaum, Oba, Thomson, Jiang
#3: Uchima (going solo for quite a while)
We're already 20km into the race, but the pace is still high with the breakaway group not yet build and the peloton still chasing down those few attempts quickly.
Quite some action for the first kilometres and so we also see the first major crash at the front of the pack - several big names involved:
Wisniowski Kennaugh Guerao Bouhanni Keukeleire Van der Sande Mørkøv
They are all back on the bike quickly, but with the general pace still high, the group is also quickly 2'30" in arrears with now 124.5km remaining. A few domestiques obviously supporting those guys and it's a group of 20 riders then.
Soon after that incident, the break of the day is finally formed - 10 riders managed to go clear:
Uchima Naesen Yzeiraj Fominykh Magnusson Puccio Oba Ngandamba Krigbaum Terpstra
They build a gap up to 1'45" soonish, but - and that's bad news for group Wisniowski/Kennaugh - the peloton does not look like it will slow down too hard!
With 73km to go, the gap is at 2'35" with Novatek leading the chase: group Wisniowski is 4 minutes behind the peloton!
With 65km to go, the peloton is still pacing, being just 1'37" behind the break: group Wisniowski still 4 minutes behind!
55km remaining and the peloton has slowed down a bit, allowing the breakaway to increase their gap to 2'45" for now.. group Wisniowski gaining a bit of time as well, but they are still 3 minutes behind the peloton. This is a tough day for those guys, who crashed so early.
Venturini the next crash victim, going down in crash with seven other riders: Berger, Lindeman, Lobato del Valle, Haidar Anuawar, Reza, Van Aert and Alawi.
It's shattering news for the U25 leader, as the can't continue the race. He has to abandon. Even worse news for his team then, as also Bush quits the race during the stage. No crash, but apparently he suffered an injury somewhere.
Bakari the first rider being dropped the "natural" way. He's already two minutes behind group Wisniowski at this point.
With still 32km to go and the peloton not showing any interest to give the breakaway an easy time (being just two minutes in arrears), the escaping group went into pieces already:
Ngandamba and Naesen the new leading duo with Puccio and Terpstra the last riders being dropped. The latter are soon to be caught by the peloton.
Group Wisniowski/Kennaugh now 2 minutes behind the peloton, still fighting to finally close the gap!
And.. finally.. they did it! But wow, how tough this pursuit must have been:
Wisniowski, Guerao, Kennaugh, Bouhanni, Keukeleire and all of the early crash victims are back in the peloton with now just 25km left in the stage! It took them more than 100km to close the gap. Huge credit to those domestiques, who supported their captains here (unfortunatelly, we forgot to cover the names). Crashing early is never a good thing, but at least, it usually allows the riders to get quickly back into the bunch. But today's general pace made it a huge effort to come back. Sick stuff.
Despite pacing so hard for most of the stage, it took the peloton until the final 5km to finally reel in the leading duo:
Vastaranta pulling the pack towards the finish, with the sprint trains soon to be formed.
2.5km to go and Valio, Kraftwerk and Netia with the trains - not yet properly working for all of the teams though:
Franczak
Vinther
Maikin
Manninen
Sobota
Kreder
Lo Cicero
Vantomme
Cavendish
Kennaugh
Nelson
Kanerva
Holloway
Appollonio
Van Asbroeck
Vermote
Vastaranta
Marcos
Kurth
Rowe
Wisniowski
Turgot
Guerao
Goss
And now they enter the wide finishing stretch, with still a corner to come:
Maikin leading, but Cavendish is not yet perfectly placed behind his leadouts. Same goes for Vantomme and also Lo Cicero.
Vermote with an attempt to storm to the front! Rowe/Wisniowski couldn't yet hang on and also Goss/Guerao are too far behind to be a factor today.
Vermote is quickly fading once the top sprinters launch their finishing kick:
all the leadouts didn't work properly, but Lo Cicero, Vantomme and Cavendish are all in the mix. Nelson, Van Asbroeck, Holloway going strong as well, just like Appollonio, who moved to the left side of the road now.
Manninen and Sobota as the last "leadouts" to crack now:
Kennaugh with a strong acceleration to move past Cavendish! Nelson, Lo Cicero and Van Asbroeck not far behind and also Vantomme (right side) and Appollonio (left) are still in striking distance.
Marcos and Wisniowski catching up from behind, but the gap is too big for a something big here.
Kennaugh still in the lead with the line approaching: Cavendish with a narrow lead on Holloway, Van Asbroeck - Nelson, Lo Cicero and Vantomme a bit further behind..
Kennaugh recovered well from all the efforts to catch back to the peloton and he takes the stage with a bike length advantage over the others! An impressive sprint after a tough day in the saddle.
Cavendish a narrow 2nd ahead of Holloway, Van Asbroeck and Nelson! Valuable bonifications for Cavendish in particular, as he's likely to move up to 1st in the GC that way.
Lo Cicero 6th ahead of Vantomme and Appollonio..
Wisniowski sprints to a very good 9th place ahead of teammate Rowe. Apparently, a few of those early crash victims didn't suffer from a possible injury.
A disappointing first sprint stage for Guerao (13th - another crash victim) and Goss (15th). Vermote (20th) tried, but couldn't compete eventually.
A terrible day for Keukeleire and Van der Sande, as both got dropped in the final kilometres. They clearly suffered from the early crash and the efforts to get back into the peloton, eventually losing more than 5 minutes today. Teammate Bakari finishing the stage as dead last with 17 minutes lost.
Also a terrible dayfor WCC, as they lose both U25 leader Venturini (with teammate Harrison taking his place at least) and Bush due to a crash and an injury. Tough luck.
Cavendish indeed slipping into yellow, now leading by 11 seconds on Van Asbroeck and 12 on Kennaugh. Wisniowski 4th ahead of Vermote, who's on the same time as Holloway now.
