It's the last stage of the SAA Tour d'Afrique, the day that will see the final decisions made. The big one is of course for the overall win - can Grosu defend his yellow jersey against this tough field of competitors? Or can someone else snatch it from him?
We also have some mountain points up for grabs, and anyone can collect up to 16 points, compared to the 6 Hamilton has, so it's really wide open. Let's see how it goes.
After the last few days, it’s really no wonder that the breakaway is once again a hard-fought affair. Especially since for the first time since stage 1, there’s something tangible at stake. KoM leader Hamilton had tried twice earlier but was unsuccessful. A group of five currently leads the race, including Calmejane, Senechal, Arashiro, Konychev and Thill.
Another four riders, Bohli, Christian, Hermans and Malori, trail them by 20 seconds, but even the peloton hasn’t given up on catching all of them yet.
Which might be why Calmejane decides to go solo!
The rest of the breakaway is quickly caught but Calmejane has a good minute on the peloton.
He takes the mountain points with ease, having extended his lead to almost 2 minutes in the last kilometer alone.
No one in the peloton showed any interest to attack for the points, Hamilton apparently didn’t have the energy after his earlier attempts. So Anderberg, Peak, Arashiro and Malori take the points just by riding at the front.
No other rider cared to join Calmejane so the French wins the mountain classification practically unopposed. He also has a lead of 6 minutes, by far the biggest of the race, but it’s hard to see him taking it all the way.
In the peloton, no one cares for the mountain points again. Polnicky and Lilovski cross the line second and third. Anderberg therefore finishes second in the classification ahead of both Peak and Hamilton.
Calmejane is a strong allrounder and he does admirably well, but the gap is steadily coming down. At the first of three intermediate sprints, he still has 2’45 on the pack. With 16 points in his pocket before today, he now enters the Top 10 of the points classification, but the Top 8 and therefore any ranking points are too far away.
Despite 4 valuable points and potentially even more valuable 2 bonus seconds being available, the sprinters stay calm in the peloton, seemingly conserving all their energy for the final sprint. Podium Ambition, Moser and Puma do the work.
Same thing at the second intermediate sprint, except weirdly, we now have Aker at the front. Not sure what their plan is today. Calmejane is just around a minute ahead now. 40 kilometers to go.
Well, this might be the plan: Yzeiraj attacks with 32 kilometers to go!
Calmejane latched on but didn’t contribute anything, so Yzeiraj makes another move a few kilometers later. He hasn’t managed to get away more than a minute from the peloton yet.
Calmejane is caught with 20 kilometers to go, Yzeiraj is 45 seconds ahead.
But he, too, is eventually caught. Good effort, though, to show his team’s colors. The final intermediate sprint is coming up now, will the sprinters make an effort this time?
Nope. All eyes continue to be on the final sprint. A bit weird considering a maximum of seven seconds could have been won on these sprints, which could have been massive. Then again, that’s also the difference between first and second place at the finish, so maybe conserving ressources was actually the play. We’ll never know for sure.
Despite a very clean runup to the sprint, preparations are lacking. With 3 kilometers to go, there are hardly any leadouts forming. Demare is already very close to the front, he’s the second-closest Puma rider to the front. Behind him is Kennaugh. Podium Ambition show some presence at the front, but Ewan is towards the bottom of the screen, not positioned ideally.
Moser - Sygic seem to be setting up for Bewley, who is currently the second rider of the trio though, with Baska still behind him. Following them are Guarnieri, Vesely, green jersey Degenkolb and Ahlstrand. Yellow jersey Grosu is a bit to their right, no team mates around him.
Baska comes around his leader to pull Bewley to the front, but once again this seems very early. Still probably better than top favorites Ahlstrand, Degenkolb, Grosu and Ewan, who continue to linger around 20th position or so at the bottom of the screen.
Demare and Samolenkov are closest to Bewley, followed by Kennaugh and Guarnieri and Vesely. Afewerki, Cavendish and Lander are next.
Ahlstrand, Grosu and Ewan try to make their way to the front, Degenkolb still seems almost disinterested.
Up ahead, Bewley launches with 1,3 kilometers to go, you really can’t see this ending well. Samolenkov and Guarnieri are right behind him, Aberasturi sprints for himself on the left, having left his leader behind.
Demare leaves a small gap to Guarnieri, who already leaves Bewley’s wheel next to Samolenkov. Vesely charges to the front on the right.
Ahlstrand, Grosu and Ewan move closer to the likes of Cavendish and Lander, who are quite a bit slower, as you’d expect. Degenkolb is still a few positions further behind.
Bewley still holds on to his lead with 700 meters to go. He’s third in the GC at the moment and has the overall win well within reach if he can hold a decent pace. Samolenkov is already slowing down a bit, Guarnieri and Vesely are still doing well. They’re 9th and 10th overall and could make a decent jump. But there’s still a long way to go.
Guarnieri takes the lead with 600 meters to go. Grosu is making up ground, he’d need to finish 7th to keep jersey if the Italian wins. But 5th overall Kennaugh is also a threat, he and Demare are really fast right now on the left side of the road.
Both pass Bewley, with Kennaugh clearly being the fastest right now - and Grosu is back in the saddle, that doesn’t look great! Degenkolb has been out of contention for a while now.
Kennaugh takes the lead in the final 200 meters. Ahlstrand and Ewan are doing very well on the far sides of the road, but will it be enough to still catch the Brit? Whoever wins this stage takes the overall, that much is sure - all riders in the middle of the road are much slower at the moment, but still fighting for podium or Top 5 positions.
Ewan pulls into second place while Demare tries to keep Ahlstrand behind him, but Kennaugh is too far gone!
And indeed, Peter Kennaugh takes the stage and overall win here at the SAA Tour d’Afrique - congratulations! Ahlstrand takes second on the day with a strong push at the end, relegating Ewan to third. We’ll have to wait and see where Grosu finishes to determine the final GC positions.
In a photo finish, Afewerki actually finishes fourth ahead of Demare, a big result for the Eritrean. Guarnieri ends up sixth.
Grosu finishes 8th behind Cavendish, which means he keeps Ewan behind but not Ahlstrand, so he drops to 3rd. Bewley finishes 9th today and falls from 3rd to 7th overall. Bad timing cost him dearly both today and yesterday.
Lander comes in tenth ahead of Vesely and Samolenkov. Degenkolb finishes on a desastrous 13th place. Two abysmal final days outside of the Top 10 see him move down to 5th overall. Not per se terrible, still well below expectations. Pedersen secures white with a 14th place today.
Another wild sprint caps off this race. No single rider was able to deliver 100% consistently throughout these four days, as no team managed to show up regularly with good leadouts. This is illustrated by the fact that our GC winner also has a 9th and a 20th place to his name in two stages, but two wins were still enough to take the overall. And yet, we also see the top names in the following places, right about where we would expect them to, for the most part. So, yeah, weird race, but hopefully there was a little bit for everyone in here.
SAA Tour d’Afrique 
