The third week starts with a hill stage, where the main difficulty comes on the last third of the stage with 3 climbs of which the final Cat.2 is actually pretty steep.
Then a descent towards the finish. In a GT you would probably speak of a typical breakaway stage, whereas also here Fablok around Raileanu might be the main team to attempt a peloton decision. But with the descent, he won`t be a big favourite if he can`t gap the rest of the peloton on the uphill, so indeed everything speaks for a break with the Sauber dup being an interesting combination if they can either take control or even join the break as we have seen before.
10 riders in the break of which 4 are from McCormick, the most active team of the race by far. McCutcheon McNulty Hoehn Wilson Clarke Cruz Medvedev Lovik Kangangi Delgerbayar
Stage winner Kangangi might be the best puncheur in there with Lovik the best GC rider.
4 riders weren`t enough as McCormick wanted to send out a 5th rider to join a bit later. Eisenhart joins alongside another Glanbia in McConvey, who actually is giving them a decent chance to beat the others from the break as also Van Poucke to support Kangangi.
Azteca for Besada and Sauber for Anuar Aziz/Costa decided not to join the break and try to control the gap around 2-3 min. They are supported by Fablok and Europcar, who might have Mahdar as decent punchy sprinter option.
The first Cat.3 is contested but Lovik in the end takes it ahead of Kangangi and McNulty. All of them in the 2nd half of the top10 but still less than half of Penasa`s 60.
Kangangi takes the next Cat.3 and reduces his gap a bit more while the others leave empty.
20km mark means the start of the final climb. And the peloton of just 62 riders is already just behind. The puncheur teams indeed controlled the gap and didn`t allow a break to take it.
Kangangi, Delgerbayer and McConvey though not giving up yet and have a gap.
McCutcheon and Lovik tried to follow them and actually for first it was enough to be first at the Cat.2 followed by McConvey, but all of them caught now.
While it had been 60 riders at the top, there were a lot more splits afterwards with just 26 riders in group one, closely followed by a group of 15 and another 6 behind. All others are really struggling to make it back.
Easy to spot all the Kraftwerk and Valio riders around their leaders in the first rows.
Also Desigual around Abal, Fraile, Burke easy to spot.
Kuss, Raileanu, Liphongyu, Sortveit are other riders in the first rows.
In the group of 15 one big GC rider in Duarte. He has support of Mannion with him though.
Also Europcar`s punchy sprinter Mahdar in there and so is one of the best placed sprinters in Von Hoff.
One problem for Von Hoff they is that his team leader Garby is sitting in the third group of 6 riders, which sees the Aussie sprinter going back to support the GC ambitions over the potential stage win.
Other mentionable riders not too far off:
Cimolai/Schorn/King/Young/Venturini in the 4th and 5th group.
Moschella/Geniez as best placed GC riders in 4th to 6th group.
One rider though is still there in the peloton. It`s Park, main leadout for the already dropped Haller and actually fastest rider left in the first group. With 6 Kraftwerk riders in total (only Geniez/Haller dropped) he might have a decent shot to win the stage.
Group Duarte has made it back to the peloton and while teh next group around Garby was really close at one time, they still have a bit of a gap.
Von Hoff actually could easily make it himself as he is stronger than Garby here, often getting a small gap but then waiting again for the group.
6,3km left on hte downhill and Kraftwerk deciding to use Park in the chasing...not really the smartest idea if there is real need to chase at all and this might be the best option to win.
Maybe though they want to avoid allowing Cimolai/Von Hoff to make it back? Still could use Denz/Maillet/Bol instead.
2km and still Park in front, we have left the descent now and being on the final flat kilometers.
39 riders in therie with other decent sprint options Zielinski/Mahdar for Europcar a bit blocked in the middle and actually Eddie Stobart`s Berger in the last rows, apparently struggling to hold on though.
The background group around Garby/Cimolai not having made it but at least avoiding a too big time gap.
10-15 riders just able to hold on, it`s not the Garby group making a come back.
The Flamme Rouge is reached and Park in the first position but if he still has energy left after his "descent only" chasing, he should be the clear favourite.
Penasa, Nerz, Gebremedhin on the left.
McCutcheon in the middle and Mannion on the right in a good position as well.
But in the end it was easily a win for Park. Simply no other rider was even close in beating him and Kraftwerk takes another stage. Really stunning team performance on every terrain, no matter the rider.
Mannion still best of the rest by far with Fraile grabbing some bonus seconds in 3rd ahead of team mate Burke, who is having a nice race himself.
McCutcheon, Gebremedhin, Denz, Penasa, Duarte and Bol next. Not the typical GT stage here but as almost every day, joining the break is not really working out so far.
Cimolai`s final push might help to gain back 4-5 seconds but in the end Garby as only real GC rider is losing time today. 41s in total.
Geniez at 2'37 and Moschella at 2'57 other top20 riders.
