Today is the first day to shuffle the GC a bit. Portugal always favours the climbers and stage racers the most with a tough mountain stage and couple of TT kilometers.
Though due to some puncheur stages, those riders always were in the mix for a potential top5-10 as well.
Today is such day where riders like Lutsenko, Skujins, Mohoric, Koretzky, Buchmann, Aranburu can gain time on the top climbers.
This year though couple of those riders such as the hybrids Buchmann or Aranburu already have lost time, just like Mohoric and will have it even harder to fight for GC now.
Plus the top GC riders this year are pretty solid on hills as well, with Phinney they even have a rider that has won stages like today a lot of times in his career.
7+1 in the break. Rohendi Sobrero Skjelmose Jensen Heidemann Bayly Ghyselinck Seigle
Campenaerts
Bayle takes the Cat.2, which in addition of the earlier Cat.4 is enough to move him into the provisional KoM lead at 15 points. Bravo being -1 then while Skjelmose and Seigle both having collected 9 points so far today being shared 3rd.
Campenaerts actually still in between the group and the peloton and not making it, while Ghyselinck was dropped on the climb but is likely to make it back on the descent.
The peloton is not going slow. With 25km to go and the final waves starting a group of just 55 riders is left being led by Aker for Mohoric but also Bralirwa for Madrazo and others.
Aranburu and Storer again being hit by bad positioning being in group 2. Lierse`s support in Senni as well behind, which is no good news for Oomen in group 1 as he was his only support on any climbs.
Chernetskiy, Reichenbach, Schir, Spanopolous, O. Rodriguez are other names.
Phinney also missing his support riders as both Jaramillo and Petelin are behind and with Garby and Inkelaar also two decent climbers, who lack the hill skills are caught out.
That`s more of a surprise now though. Guldhammer, who behind Phinney belongs to the best allrounders here is dropped and not looking good.
Good for him that both Eg and Greegard are looking stronger and drop back to support him.
With 19km to go that`s nothing you want to see.
He a bit later makes it back but there still are 2-3 hills to ride.
While Hadi and Bouchard do an extremely good job behind by chasing since hitting the hills, one rider is still strong enough to attack. It`s Mohoric, who is probably still angry for his loss yesterday. Or he didn`t care for GC due to weak TT skills and wanted to get some more opportunity to be allowed to take a stage or two.
Skujins, Buchmann and Koretzky try to follow while Bouchard and Hadi are still in full control of the situation it seems with Madrazo sitting right behind them.
Meanwhile Bayly takes some more points ahead and is at 22 points in total now followed by Seigle at 16 and Bravo 14. No other has more than 9. With the accelerations behind though it`s unlikely they make it as the gap is under 1min with 12km to go.
As riders like Lutsenko, Theuns or Ackermann also were chasing in the peloton to move closer to the attackers, the group of 55 split again, pretty much in two exact halfs.
Being in the later group are Rodrigues as Portuguese`s best GC rider as also Habtemichael as U25 2nd and Bennets co-leader for Xero.
And also Guldhammer in problems again. Even further behind, still having support by his team mates.
Meanwhile Kemboi, the actual GC leader, sprinter, prologue specialist but no uphill rider at all still belongs to the best 25 riders of the day in the main group! Solid performance from him even though he is in the latest positions now and the Cat.3 yet to come.
With 8 km to go the group is fully caught, while the next group around Rodrigues is fighting to make contact and also Guldhammer can be seen in the 3rd group just around the corner.
Interestingly since catching the group though the pace dropped again. No rider or team feels in need to chase up the final climb. This makes the chance for the dropped riders even higher to come back.
And actually allows for some KoM riders to take some more points.
Or even weirder to attack. Amayim again. But wait, that`s not Bayly, who actually chased kind of for the last 2 kilometers.
Instead they decided to send Wohler for the KoM attack and with him it`s Aime De Gendt again.
Both of them maybe not even aimed the KoM but instead attacked for the stage win as they go all-in on the descent.
The only other rider going all-in is Madrazo!
The Spaniard was 3rd at the KoM and is now chasing them having led to a small selection with only couple of riders with him.
Phinney, Bennett, Galta, Skujins, Aular, Mavrikakis and Cort Nielsen!
The first two though can celebrate an unexpected win, which was given away from the top riders on that last climb.
Aime De Gendt never really was in doubt as he was easily the stronger of the duo since the descent started.
Wohler though wasn`t even placed too bad in the GC and could surprise them all.
The Madrazo group was caught in the end again and it`s Galta leading them over the line ahead of Aular, Lutsenko and Buchmann.
They lose 43s as once Gr. Madrazo was caught the pace dropped again.
Good news for Rodrigues for Binance and even Guldhammer and Carlsberg. They were rewarded s.t. and are still in competition.
While Rodrigues clearly deserved this by having been able to make it back, Carlsberg and Zwift played it to perfection with their riders.
Gregaard, then Eg, then Burke and Guldhammer came in all solo it looked but the time gaps in between were so perfectly calculated that the officials decided to count them as same group as Jorgenson as last of the actual peloton.
Losing time though are the earlier dropped riders. Aranburu, Senni, Spanopoulos, Garby, Inkelaar etc. all lose 2'58 to the winners, which means more than 2 min on rivals.
And to round it up. Kemboi was fantastic and kept contact with the best and still loses. As Cort Nielsen was allowed to attack instead of chasing for Kemboi, the pace wasn`t high enough to really keep the jersy. Instead Wohler indeed takes the GC lead by 9s. What a crazy start to the Volta a Portugal this year with lots of changes and things you would never expect to happen.
Amaysim won`t care though. GC, Points, KoM is more than you`d expect when your actual leaders fail and drop.
