Stage 3 - Paphos > Mount Olympus After yesterday's cobbles stage, that made for a huge selection, we're heading for the co-queen stage up Mount Olympus: a challenging summit finish with more than 16km and average slopes of 7%. It's time for the premium climbers to distance the premium cobblers!
Roglic and Kwiatkowski should be the most promising riders for the GC, as they are "just" 4 minutes off the GC leader Lindeman, who should really struggle in today's stage though. Also Riesebeek may surprise, since he gained valuable time on Roglic/Kwiatkowski. König and Bennett lost five minutes on Roglic and need to deliver a huge result today, just like Valls/Penasa, Garby or Panayotov, who lost even more time on the cobbles. We need fireworks from those guys!
Five riders form the break of the day, establishing a minutes gap quickly:
Hristov Sakala (GC 53th + 11.12) Kiriakidis Lecourt De Billot Helme
A great opportunity to fight for the KoM classification today and Sakala takes the first Cat3 climb ahead of Helme and Hristov..
Two more riders join the escaping group prior to the second mountain sprint with still 162km to go:
Cieslik GarcÃa Cortina
Cieslik as clearly the best climber in the group, that is now 2'30" ahead of the peloton..
Cieslik takes the next Cat3 climb easily ahead of Helme and Sakala..
Helme though fights back at the next Cat4 climb, beating Sakala and Cieslik..
Cieslik wins the first Cat2 climb ahead of a strong Helme and Sakala..
..and the next Cat4 climb ahead of Helme and Sakala, with the other escapees struggling to follow..
Cieslik also takes the next Cat3 climb ahead of.. Helme and Sakala!
Provisional KoM Cieslik 30, Helme 28, Sakala 18
75km to go and the peloton starts to chase: Generali as the most active team with also Xero showing some support at the front of the group. There's already a major split in the pack now, as only 89 riders are left in the main group, that is 5'30" behind the new leading trio:
Cieslik Helme Sakala
GarcÃa Cortina in between the leading trio and the pack and all other early escapees have been caught by the bunch in the meantime!
The higher pace and the truly challenging profile of the stage leads to some of yesterday's best performers suffering:
Zepuntke (GC 15th) can't hang on with the peloton anymore, quickly being 2 minutes in arrears..
Bille (GC 23rd) Langeveld (GC 20th) Jenko (GC 9th) Blythe (GC 7th) a few seconds behind Zepuntke (see picture above)..
Thomas (GC 16th) Fouquet (GC 26th) in a group further two minutes behind..
De Haes (GC 24th) unsurprisingly got dropped earlier!
While Cieslik would also take the next Cat4 climb, there's a few riders going clear from the peloton with 47km remaining:
Grashev (GC 28th + 6.52) Eg Stybar (GC 54th + 11.12) De Leon Tempier
Burghardt tried to join them, but failed to hang on!
This new chasing group is 2'13" behind the leading trio and 1'49" ahead of the peloton (76 riders) quickly..
Cieslik keeps dominating the mountain sprints, as he also takes the next Cat2 climb with 38km to the finish - this time, he drops Helme and Sakala!
Provisional KoM Cieslik 45, Helme 39, Sakala 19
The peloton keeps pacing in order to keep the gap to the leading group(s) withing striking distance. Still 27km to go for the pack and the next notable rider can't follow anymore:
Nolf (GC 6th)
Cieslik enters the bottom of the long climb up Mount Olympus, 13km to go now:
Tempier as the first of the chasing group trying to bridge across the solo leader, but he's still 34 seconds behind him and Eg, Grashev and De Leon are just a few seconds behind Tempier..
Stybar can't follow, but he's ahead of Helme now.. Sakala already swallowed by the pack, that is still 5 minutes behind Cieslik!
Bennett now setting the pace at the front of the pack - working for Debesay today? Also Generali with still some good support for Roglic and the peloton is slowly narrowing the gap to the leading groups. The climb is challenging and the bunch is down to just 44 riders with now 12km to go:
Burghardt (GC 18th) as the latest rider being dropped by the pack..
Albert (GC 8th) a few seconds behind..
Owen (GC 14th) Kasperkiewicz (GC 22th) Matthews (GC 12th) further 30 seconds in arrears..
Vanspeybrouck (GC 11th) is dropped by the peloton a few moments later than Burghardt (11.5km to the finish)..
Lindeman (GC leader) got dropped before! He really tried, but totally cracks on the first kilometres into the climb. No surprise though, but from now on, he will just try to somehow finish the stage!
9km to go and Eg catches up to Cieslik with a strong attack from the chasing group! Tempier could not follow, but he's a few seconds ahead of Grashev and De Leon..
7km to go for the leading duo and 8.5km for the main group, that has been reduced to just 24 riders in the meantime:
Roglic (GC 17th + 4.06) senses his chance to go for the GC lead and he finally attacks!
The main group goes into further pieces with Roglic's attack obviously causing a higher pace and several riders trying to follow:
Penasa Valls Jeannesson Krizek building a group with a 26 seconds deficit on Roglic!
Both Penasa and Valls lost more than 10 minutes on Roglic yesterday, so it's foremost about the stage win now..
Riesebeek (GC 10th + 2.41) can't hang on, being 45 seconds behind group König now!
Van Keirsbulck (GC 3rd) Bennett further 27 seconds in arrears..
Debesay (GC 2nd + 0.02) not far behind Van Keirsbulck and so Bennett may actually drop back to support the team's biggest GC contender at this point!
Kwiatkowski (GC 21st + 4.06) though? He's an additional minute behind group Debesay! Hard to say, what's up with him today: he did so well yesterday and had to be considered the top favorite for the GC (alongside Roglic, of course) - but he's not performing today. That's quite a bummer for his team and a truly disappointing performance..
Some more GC contenders got dropped earlier:
Theuns (GC 13th) Bridges (GC 5th) David (GC 4th)
For them, it's all about limitting the losses somehow and wait for the actual gaps between the best climbers and themselves..
Back to the front now, where Eg goes clear from Cieslik with 4.6km to go!
Group Tempier, De Leon and Grashev is 50 seconds in arrears and not too far ahead of Roglic anymore!
3.5km before the finish, Roglic has caught up to this group then - and also Valls, Penasa, Jeannesson and Krizek did!
Tempier can't hang on anymore and group Roglic/Valls/Penasa is now just 59 seconds behind the solo leader:
2.2km to the finish and Cieslik is caught by group Roglic.. Eg is 38 seconds ahead and fighting to hold on until the finish line!
1.2km to go and Valls goes clear from the chasing group, catching up to Eg with a strong attack!
23 seconds behind, Krizek is at the front of group Roglic/Penasa...
..but they are not trying to follow Valls, who easily went past Eg in the meantime!
For Roglic, Valls ain't a threat for the GC and Penasa obviously won't counter this attack anyway..
..and that's the stage win for Valls then! A presitigious victory on this first ever climb up Mount Olympus. The big guns made it look so easy to close a rather big gap on the final kilometres of the stage and Valls will be happy to come away with a stage win here. He will also improve in the GC, of course. The question is: how far?
+ 43" for Jeannesson, Penasa, Roglic and Eg
A great stage result for Kulczyk and Jeannesson.. and a key result for Roglic, who will probably take the GC lead with Lindeman losing big minutes today!
+ 1'07" Krizek
+ 1'43" for Medvedev and Cieslik as 7th and 8th
Cieslik completing this big day for his team, as he will take the KoM lead in addition to a nice result on the stage!
+ 1'51" König
+ 1'54" Panayotov
+ 1'57" Lehtinen
+ 2'20" for De Leon and Grashev, who may hope to make a nice jump in the GC as well!
+ 2'33" Tempier
+ 2'46" De Clercq as 15th on the stage
+ 3'12" Niyonshuti, who will also be happy with this result
+ 3'50" for a group with Eyob, Kulhavy and Garby
+ 6'35" Riesebeek, who might have hoped for something better
+ 7'17" De la Cruz as 27th
+ 8'02" Van Keirsbulck for a rather good performance, actually!
+ 9'15" Debesay
+ 10'36" Kwiatkowski with an unbelievable "performance"...
+ 27'55" Lindeman as 111th eventually! As said before, he totally cracked and finished just ahead of Blythe, who got dropped earlier into the stage!
Soooo... that obviously leads to some changes in the GC: Roglic indeed moves up to 1st with now 3'35" on Van Keirsbulck, who did pretty well today! Grashev moving up to 3rd (+ 4.23) just ahead of Riesbeek (4.27) and Debesay (4.28).. König (6.37) moving up to 6th with Bridges (6.51) not far behind as 7th..
David drops to 8th (7.25), but still has a nice gap on De Clercq (9.09), Niyonshuti (9.35) as 10th, Kwiatkowski (9.53) and Valls (9.53) as 12th! Quite a great stage for Valls, how obviously goes for the biggest jump in the GC.. Marzuki and Jeannesson round up the Top-15 ahead of Penasa and Burghardt.
Tomorrow's hilly stage will again offer opportunities though and while Roglic seems to have this one in the bags, the fight for the podium may become interesting. Will Kwiatkowski bounce back from this disappointing day and at least fight for the Top-10 or Top-5 in the GC?
