Stage 4 - Ibri Royal Oasis > Eastern Mountain The Tour of the Middle East concludes with the queen stage, a brutal mountain profile with two steep climbs prior to a long summit finish, that looks similar to such famous climbs as Mt Ventoux. A tough challenge after yesterday's hilly stage, that already made for quite a selection inside the bunch of GC contenders. Whoever wants to win the race though, certainly needs a good day in this final stage. A quick overview over the GC situation:
1
George Bennett
Xero Racing p/b Octagon
13h09'57
2
Merhawi Kudus
Repsol - Netflix
+ 31
3
Michal Kwiatkowski
Netia - Vonin
+ 43
4
Andrew Talansky
Podium Ambition
+ 1'24
5
Peter Velits
Xero Racing p/b Octagon
+ 1'39
6
Stefan Denifl
SPAR - Shimano - SCG
+ 1'45
7
Nicolas Roche
Fablok - Bank BGZ
s.t.
8
Ki Ho Choi
Meiji - JR East
s.t.
9
Robbie Squire
Azteca-NBCSN
s.t.
10
Pawel Poljanski
Fablok - Bank BGZ
s.t.
11
Anthony Roux
Xero Racing p/b Octagon
s.t.
12
Dietmar Mehr-Wenige
Kraftwerk Man Machine
s.t.
13
Rigoberto Úran
Minions
+ 2'02
14
Natnael Berhane
World Cycling Center
s.t.
15
Paolo Scarponi
Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff
s.t.
..
18
Aleksandr Pluchkin
Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff
+ 2'12
19
Yonathan Monsalve
Ayubowan!
s.t.
Bennett with a fantastic ride yesterday, gaining valuable time on all premium climbers. Kudus, however, had a great day as well and given his advantage in mountains, he looks like the most promising GC contender prior to this final stage. Kwiatkowski and Bennett both need to overperform, if they want to beat Kudus today.
Velits with a small advantage over Denifl, Choi, Úran and also Pluchkin or Monsalve, who lost additional seconds on Denifl. Two minutes on Bennett will be quite a challenge and we surely should expect an aggressive race from the best climbers, who need to gain back minutes here.
The break of the day is formed by eight riders, who broke clear from the pack right from start, building a three minutes gap quickly:
Esmaeli (2nd in KoM, 24pts) bridges across a 3'25" gap to the breakaway group with now 97km to go. He's obviously aiming for the mountain classification and he's joining the leading group close to the first of two Cat3 climbs!
Stachowiak the current KoM-leader with 32pts, by the way..
Sinelobov would take the first Cat3 climb ahead of Esmaeli then, who's at 28pts then.. Signorini wins the second Cat3 climb ahead of Tatarinov and Stetina..
Esmaeli can't follow the group anymore! His efforts to join the break and also the strength of some better climbers in the group make him suffer on the first of two consecutive Cat1 climbs! He won't gain further points on Stachowiak that way:
Koshevoy wins the first Cat1 climb ahead of Signorini.. Signorini takes the second ahead of Koshevoy and this duo goes clear from the breakaway group!
Provisional KoM Signorini 36, Stachowiak 32, Koshevoy 28, Esmaeli 28
And those two climbs would not only make the breakaway group going into pieces, there's also some major splits in the peloton with still 22km to go! A group of 3 riders managed to open up a gap and there's already only small groups after the penultimate climb:
Kudus Pluchkin Monsalve indeed putting some early pressure on Bennett!
The GC-leader is part of a next group with now just 18 riders, that is half a minute behind group Pluchkin:
Velits not looking good with still more than 20km to go! That's surely a surprise, even more, since he did quite well in yesterday's first key stage. He's already more than a minute behind group Bennett though and just like some other notable names, he's not amongst the best 15-20 GC contenders today:
Duarte Garby Augustyn in a group 13 seconds ahead of Velits..
Carthy in the same group as Velits..
At the bottom of the final climb up 'Eastern Mountain' we see some action in group Bennett, that is now already 52 seconds behind group Pluchkin:
Berhane goes clear with now 17.7km to go!
The group seems to go into pieces with a few guys trying to follow Berhane:
Group Pluchkin caught up to a group with early escapees Tatarinov, Stetina, Shapira and Sinelobov - yet with a minute disadvantage on the leading duo Signorini/Koshevoy!
It's an action packed race with now still 15.8km - several riders trying to bridge across the front groups and more and more riders suffer from this highe pace. It's an selection race as well:
Berhane Denifl Nazaret Úran building a new chasing group..
Bennett tried to follow, but now he cracks!
Kwiatkowski, Choi, Henao Montoya, Poljanski not far behind him.. another group with Roche, Talansky, Shikai, Brenes further 20 seconds in arrears:
Signorini is getting away from Koshevoy in the meantime!
14km to go and group Pluchkin/Monsalve/Kudus is a minute behind Signorini..
Berhane and Nazaret attack from the next group!
Úran tries to follow, Denifl can't!
Group Tatarinov/Stetina is dropping back now..
And now 7km to go, we're slowly becoming a clearer picture of the situation on this challenging climb and group Pluchkin has finally caught Signorini, who makes it a 4-men leading group now:
Pluchkin Monsalve Kudus Signorini
Koshevoy at 0.27
Berhane Úran Nazaret at 0.54
Denifl at 1.32
Bennett suffering from his efforts and he's already 4 minutes behind Kudus/Pluchkin.. a small group with Talansky (who recovered from his earlier struggles), Choi, Henao Montoya and Kwiatkowski is signfically faster than group Bennett now..
3.4km remaining and Monsalve is dropped from the leading group! He can't keep up with Pluchkin, Kudus and Signorini! Still the fourth rider on the climb and ahead of group Úran/Berhane/Nazaret by 44 seconds at this point..
Group Úran went past Koshevoy now and while there's already a 1'24" gap on the leading group, they are doing well to hold off Denifl (40 seconds behind) and the next group with Henao Montoya, Talansky and Choi (Kwiatkowski got dropped) - which is exactly 2 minutes in arrears!
GC-leader Bennett with still 4.4km to go and as part of a group with Shikai, Ji, Roche, Squire, Poljanski and some early escapees, he's doing all the work on his own for quite a while now.. he's really fighting to at least secure himself a decent GC result, but with now already 5 minutes of disadvantage on the leading group, yellow will be gone for sure!
Ahead of group Bennett, there's Brenes, Kwiatkowski and then group Henao Montoya/Choi/Talansky..
The front group is about to enter the final kilometre of the stage and Pluchkin is setting the pace with Kudus and also Signorini still hanging on. That's another great day for Kudus, it seems, and given his advantage on Pluchkin prior to the stage, he's on a good way to claim the overall victory!
As soon as Pluchkin launched his sprint, Signorini is done.. Kudus tries to hang on..
..but Pluchkin takes the queen stage quite comfortably! A very good performance from Pluchkin, who broke clear from the main group with more than 20km to go. He could not get rid off Kudus, however:
+ 11" Kudus - a fantastic day for his team and himself!
+ 1'15" Signorini, who lost a minute on the final kilometre - but still a great day for the Italian, who secured himself the polka dot with his great performance here
A few seconds behind him, we notice, that group Úran managed to catch Monsalve in the meantime!
+ 1'45" Úran as 4th
+ 1'57" Monsalve and Nazaret
+ 2'07" Berhane
+ 3'44" Denifl as 8th
+ 3'52" Henao Montoya, who almost caught up to Denifl on the final kilometre
+ 4'10" Koshevoy, who will probably move up the GC for a decent result
+ 4'55" Talansky as 11th - a great result after being dropped from the main group earlier on!
+ 5'17" Choi
+ 5'42" Shikai
+ 6'12" Brenes and Kwiatkowski, who won't defend his podium but who still gave it a hard fight today
+ 7'45" Bennett - the race leader finishes the stage as 18th behind Ji and Squire eventually. A tough day for the Kiwi, who could not rely on Velits (34th on the stage) and who had to work all for himself for most of the climb. He surely tried and put up a huge fight, but it has been a brutal final 15kms for him..
And now for the final GC: Kudus goes for three shirts and wins the GC, the points (one point ahead of Appollonio, who finished the stage inside the time limit) and the U25 classification! A huge race for him, obviously. Finishing both key stages as 2nd and hanging on with Pluchkin today makes it a well deserved overall victory and certainly a great points haul for Repsol!
Pluchkin has to settle for 2nd in the GC (+ 1.22), but with a stage-win and today's big jump in the GC, it must be considered a success eventually. He obviously would prefer to win every stage race he enters, but Kudus was simply too strong on both key days here.
Úran completes the podium! Thanks to him going past an dead empty Monsalve on the final kilometre of the stage, he moves up to 3rd in the GC with 22 seconds on Monsalve and Berhane, who should be happy to complete the GC's Top-5 in the end.
Denifl keeps his 6th for a solid GC result ahead of Talansky, Kwiatkowski, Choi and former race leader Bennett, who drops from 1st to 10th today. Still a nice GC result for Bennett and with a stage-win in his bags, too, he did not disappoint. Opposing to Velits, who finishes the race as 19th in the GC.
Squire, Nazaraet, breakaway rider Koshevoy, Roche and Poljanski round up the Top-15.. Henao Montoya did not gain enough time today and has to settle for 18th. Solid results for Iino as 16th and Augustyn as 17th, Ji completes the Top-20.
As alreay said, Signorini wins the KoM competition by more than 10pts on Stachowiak and Koshevoy/Esmaeli share the 3rd place.
World Cycling Center finish as the best team ahead of Meiji and Team Popo4Ever!
An eventful comeback edition of the Tour of Middle East, that certainly got some nice promotion for a possible longer stint on the MGUCI calendar. A well deserved overall winner and some action-packed stages particularly on the final two days.
