Its a bright and sunny day here in Australia, which will be welcome to those who enjoy the heat.
The first action of the day sees Egidio and Dima escape, with Betilson, Krul, Sobrero chasing, and Yates a bit further behind. The 6 eventually all join up to form the days breakaway. They build up a lead of 2 minutes and 36 seconds!
With half the race gone, the gap for the breakaway is now down to 1 minute and 30 seconds, showing that the peloton is beginning to wind up the chase, with just over 60km to the finish.
As we reach the bottom of the only major hill of the day just past the halfway point, the teams doing most of the work are Euskaltel, Equinor, Centovali and Eddie Stobart.
The pace is clearly an issue for some, as riders at the back begin to become unhinged and fall away from the peloton. Alarmingly every rider from BNZ Cycling team, including Steele Von Hoff is falling behind, except for Yates who is up in the breakaway still.
As the peloton reaches the top of the climb and prepares for the descent, the "peloton" if you can even call it that is in shambles. Small groups forming everywhere and surely some will be caught out from this now.
These are the riders caught out. As you can see a larger group of 98 is behind a group of 20 or so, but the gap is only a few meters, despite the time gaps saying it is around 30 seconds, so the two main groups will rejoin moments later.
Earlier mentioned Von Hoff actually manages to make it back to the "A1" group, which means his race is not over yet. The big losers so far are: Fonseca, Andersson, Jakobsen and Walscheid.
With now 20km to go the large chasing group of 90~ and group of 20~ are now a peloton again Kumara tries an attack to test the legs of the other teams and it looks good for a km or so before he is brought back. The peloton looks very unorganized though, which will help the leading breakaway which now has a gap of 30 seconds.
Unforunately, Thorsen has dropped back, and it looks like his entire Eddie Stobart team has dropped back with him to help bring him back! Not the best move as they all will finish behind the action today!
With 12km to go now, 3 riders try and attack: Maes, Reckweg and Veyhe
They have a gap of 15 seconds to the peloton, and are now 10 seconds behind the breakaway. They will make it up to the breakaway moments later and stay that way for a few kms.
Now as they go under the 5km banner, Reckweg attacks again, with only Maes somewhat able to follow. The gap from Reckweg to the peloton is 30 seconds now, and there is absolutely no organization. The sprinters in the peloton seem to be the ones doing the chasing, not the teammates suggesting everyone is right at their limits.
From the overhead at the 1km banner, the gaps have shrunk a lot, but Reckweg and Maes are still just ahead of the peloton, with no one in the peloton having started their sprint (or even formed trains yet). Its looking very good for Reckweg, but maybe the sprinters will have a burst of speed towards the end?
No! Reckweg is the winner! Maes takes second! But now the battle for 3rd from the sprinters...
In a tight sprint for the line, Canelon takes it ahead of Krieger and Guillen. Boivin takes 6th, Cabrera, Moser, Carsi, and Vaquera round out the Top 10.
