Stage 2 - Limassol > Limassol It's time for the crucial days here and today we have more than 20km of cobbles on the menu! A quite hilly first half of the stage, too - and crosswinds up to 45kmh as well! This should be a challenging day and the interesting quesiton will be, how the cobblers will take this stage and how much the climbers will suffer..
Vanspeybrouck, Blythe, Zepuntke, Burghardt and Nolf as the premium cobblers with solid skills on the hills. Also Theuns, Van Keirsbulck, David or Debesay should fancy their chances due to the partly hilly profile.. Roglic, König, Kwiatkowski and Medvedev (the hills may hurt him though) as those climbers, who handle cobbles in a solid fashion.
The attacks from the peloton kicked off right from the start and it's some hectic first few kilometres of the day:
#1 - Coronel, Miltiadis, Lilholt, Rathe, Debesay, Kukrle, Helme, Varga, De Haes
#2 - Nolf, Debesay, Van Keirsbulck, Brockhoff, Rathe
#3 - Nolf, Van Keirsbulck, Rathe, Brockhoff, David, Debesay, Mygind, Stybar, Bridges, Helme, Kukrle, Varga, Andersson, Vaidem
#4 - Albert, Van Keirsbulck, Lindeman, Debesay and also those others..
It took quite a while for a group to be formed and wow that's an interesting group with several top cobblers:
Van Keirsbulck Debesay (who took the second mountain sprint) David Nolf (who took the first intermediate) Albert (who took the first mountain sprint) Stybar Lindeman Bridges Brockhoff Rathe
Several more riders in between this leading group and the peloton, that does allow those cobblers to go clear: Mygind, Vaidem, Andersson, Helme and Varga - they would not make it into the leading group and spend some time ahead of the peloton though..
93km to go and the most challenging climbs of the day are left behind. The leading group went into pieces in this first third of the race, with just 7 riders remaining in the front group:
Debesay Albert Lindeman David Nolf Van Keirsbulck Bridges
Stybar a minute behind, Rathe another minute and Brockhoff? Another minute!
The peloton is 6 minutes in arrears with now 83km to go for the leading group: Iberia and Generali as those teams starting to chase. There's definitely some pressure for Blythe now and also Generali has some interest to not let those strong escapees go too far.
The first major splits in the bunch occured, too: just 108 riders are left in the main group - the most notable name being dropped is Medvedev, who's already eight minutes behind the peloton! The hills really don't suit him..
David took the third mountain sprint of the day, but now it's Lindeman taking the intermediates and also the final mountain sprint ahead of Albert:
Provisional KoM Alber 12, Bissinger 10, Cortina/Debesay 8, Lindeman/David 7
62.5km to go for the leading group (still 7 riders)...
The peloton has narrowed the gap to 2'35" with now 45km to go though. And the high pace and further cobbles sectors make for a big selection in the pack, where we now just have 26 riders left in the first peloton! Another group with 22 riders has just been dropped, unable to keep the pace anymore.
Let's have a look, at who's in the main group then:
Blythe, Insausti, Garcia Cortina Vanspeybrouck, Juul-Jensen Roglic, Jenko, De Clercq, Bille, Theuns Bennett, Rowe Kwiatkowski, Dahl-Olsen, Kasperkiewicz, Menten Zepuntke, De Haes König Marzuki Riesebeek Burghardt, Grashev, Thomas Stybar Langeveld
De la Cruz as the most notable climber in the next group, that just got dropped from the main peloton..
Penasa/Valls already three minutes behind the peloton (six minutes on the leading group)!
Garby and Panayotov further three minutes in arrears!
Still 34km to go (and still heavy crosswinds blowing): Bennett is the next climber suffering from the cobbles, as he is dropped by the main group and quickly losing time! Some support from Rowe and Novardianto, but the Kiwi does not look too good now..
The reduced mained group (27 riders) struggles to finally close the gap to the strong leading group, that is still 2'49" ahead with now only 18km to go:
Blythe does not want to wait anymore and he attacks the main group!
Riesebeek and Jenko (a tactical move for Roglic?) tried to follow, but they soon give up.. Blythe and the other two riders quickly openend up a notable gap on the main group, where no other team is willing to chase him (for kinda obvious reasons)..
13km to go and the leading group is down to six riders with Albert being dropped!
Blythe is now just 54 seconds behind and then the gap on the main group with Roglic/Kwiatkowski/Vanspeybrouck is growing back to 5 minutes! Jenko/Riesebeek still in between Blythe and the main group..
Blythe easily went past Albert and goes for another acceleration 9.5km before the finish. He really wants to join the leading group, that is still 44 seconds ahead though!
Just 4km remaining and Albert re-joined Blythe, who's 32 seconds behind the leading group.. that may be too much of a gap to join the sprint for the stage win!
Group Roglic/Kwiatkowski has gained back some time though and Vanspeybrouck tries to go clear now:
This group with Roglic/Kwiatkowski/Zepuntke has gone into further pieces with more and more riders suffering from this challenging stage - just 13 riders left in the group, that is less than 4 minutes behind the leading group:
Zepuntke, De Haes Burghardt, Owen, Matthews, Thomas Roglic, Theuns, Bille Kwiatkowski, Kasperkiewicz Marzuki Langeveld
So some more possible GC contenders could not follow anymore:
Juul-Jensen a minute behind group Roglic/Kwiatkowski..
König really suffering and he's already two minutes in arrears and not too far ahead of group Bennett anymore! He looked good for a while, but seems to pay the price now..
Back to the front, where the sprint is on: Van Keirsbulck from the leading position, with Debesay, Lindeman, David, Nolf and Bridges coming next..
Van Keirsbulck can't hold on to his advantage and so it's Debesay vs Lindeman for line honours!
The others can't compete.. Blythe/Albert are still half a minute behind then..
Big win for Lindeman, who outsprints Debesay and Van Keirsbulck! A rather surprising winner from this strong escaping group, but apparently he went for the smartest tactics afterall.
David, Bridges and Nolf finishing with the same time then. A good day for all of them, even though they definitely would have preferred to win the stage eventually..
+ 40" for Blythe
+ 50" for Albert, who will be the KoM leader after the stage
+ 2'11" for a strong Jenko and Riesebeek
That's quite an interesting result for Riesebeek, who managed to finish ahead of group Roglic/Kwiatkowski.. given his allround skills, he may actually become something like a dark horse for the GC!
+ 3'27" for Vanspeybrouck, who finishes a few seconds ahead of the next group
+ 3'36" then for the group with Roglic, Kwiatkowski and Zepuntke
A good result for particularly Roglic and Kwiatkowski, as they did not lose too much time on the premium cobblers! An of course they gained valuable time on other climbers..
+ 7'11" for Juul-Jensen as 30th on the stage
+ 9'05" for König and also Bennett in the same group eventually!
+ 13'49" for De la Cruz as 63rd
+ 14'32" for a group with Penasa/Valls
+ 17'59" for a group with Garby and Panayotov
Several riders DNF the stage, some sprinters like Thorsen and Giacoppo as the most notable names..
Lindeman leading the GC by 2 seconds on Debesay and 22 seconds on Van Keirsbulck! Lindeman as the worst climber though, so tomorrow will be another very interesting day: Roglic, Kwiatkowski, Marzuki and of course Riesebeek with a good day here - those 4 minutes on the GC leader should be doable on the mountain stage. A few at least solid climbers amongst those in the front though.. at least someone like Debesay may stand a chance to hang on for a while. Those climbers with bigger losses today surely need to ride a very aggressive race tomorrow!
