The second week starts with another stage for the sprinters.
The first KoM sprint is just a couple of kilometers into the stage, so we see the usual suspects attacking right from the start: Laporte wins the first KoM points and now has 25. Lammertink and Hoang (10) take the remaining points.
Laporte (30) also wins the second KoM sprint, this time followed by Hoang (13) and Bloem (5).
We skipped the first intermediate sprint (no contest there) and see the break pass the second one. The four riders who scored the KoM points earlier were joined by Rajapakshage and Skala. The peloton trails by 5 minutes. The next 50 km are flat, followed by 20 km of up and down (including 2 KoM sprints) and another 70 km of pan flat roads to the finish.
Laporte (35) makes it 3/3 today. Skala (3) and Bloem (6) take the remaining points. The gap to the peloton is down to 3 minutes.
Laporte (40) also wins the last KoM sprint, then it’s Lammertink (6) and Hoang (14).
The break is caught with 15 km to go.
Rabobank is once again building a train, but with Formolo and Tolhoek as the two remaining leadout riders this attempt seems to be doomed. We’re 5 km from the finish and the riders arrive at the last two corners.
With 3 km to go Carthy is leading out Walls. Probably the sprinter teams didn’t have enough time to organize their trains today …
With 1.4 km to go Castrillo accelerates from the pack. Thijssen follows his teammate, but it doesn’t seem like this is a planned action.
Under the red kite Thijssen has a gap to Walls and Yates. Behind those three is the usual bunch of sprinters.
But all of them were in the wind to early. Van Poppel profits from not having a leadout today and is 2nd at the moment behind Sanikwathi. But once again Szarka in 3rd seems to be the fastest.
And Szarka finally has the right timing and takes the win! Sanikwathi and Lauk complete the podium. Lutsenko, Alaphilippe and Prasad finish 4th to 6th. Van Poppel, Yates, Trondsen and Sureda complete the top 10.
Szarka is not only today’s winner but also the new man in the maglia ciclamino.
[PTM] Giro d‘Italia 
