Another hilly day with a hilltop finish in the Balkans Lopez and Areruya once again the top favourites.
Cat 4 Climb early on here and the top 3 Sequera Munton Fjellheim manages to just get ahead of Charles for the 1pt for 3rd place
10 man break and no one really in GC contention but two of our usual KOM challengers
Charles KOM Leader White Hernandez Moran Blume Levy De Vos Wandahl 2nd KOM Fjellheim Munton McKenna Sequera
As they were getting into a break we went over another
Cat 4 climb with White 5pt McKenna 3pt De Vos 1pt
the order over the climb
We skip to first time up our finishing circuit the sequence goes Cat 2, Cat 4, Cat 4
McKenna was in fine form up the climbs first time he wins every sprint and quickly has 23pts in the bag for the day De Vos also started to pick some points up and he's onto 10pts. Our leaders struggle though Wandahl grabs just enough points to be the provisional leader on 38pts. White struggled on every climb despite both team mates helping and did not score a point and stays on 37pts
just in between our 1st and 2nd circuit and the gap at 5"15 and a big move in the KOM jersey as Wandahl takes a huge win on the Cat 4 climb De Vos is 2nd and the others near the top of the competition don't score.
McKenna makes up for it on our 2nd circuit of the climbs winning another cat 2 climb as him Sequera, De Vos and Munton go clear.
Wandahl does score a couple of valuable points being 5th over the climb great team work by Fjellheim who drags him up just clear of a charging peloton with the rest of the break already caught.
De Vos would win the 2nd Cat 4 climb with no score from McKenna but he would then get his own Cat 4 win at the top of our 2nd circuit. 50km out the gap from our 4 leaders is 2"30 with the others in the breakaway all caught.
The final climb of the day De Vos takes it which all but confirms Wandahl will lead the KOM overnight unless the breakaway takes the stage and McKenna wins the stage with the gap at 2"17 to the peloton it doesn't feel likely.
Gavars leads over the climb and some shocking news from the bunch as De Bie, McCarthy and Müller have all been dropped already even though we still have 70 riders left in the bunch these climbs are really proving to be more like mountain passes then hills this week.
Even more of a shock Stannard is clinging on for dear life at the back of the peloton and has been struggling at multiple points in the stage, for now he's ahead of the De Bie group though
10km to go no attacks and one of the more active teams of the week take up the pacing the gap is at 1"10.
5km to go and that is the end of the breakaway the pack gave them no chance shouts the announcer at the finishing line which seems slightly harsh they've given it everything today and got 40km further then the others in the break.
Here We Go! Kwiatkowski launches on the last downhill we have a 2.3km final climb and he wants a gap before it
Phinney reacts and he's starting to hunt down the leader the peloton keeps up the high tempo.
Phinney blows by Kwiatkowski
who looks to have cracked Hirschi is chasing him down alone though and not letting the gap grow.
Phinney is on the steep part of the final climb can he hold the charging pack.
No because here is a familiar sight a charging yellow thunderbolt Lopez comes scorching past everyone else Areruya is trying to follow
An Arrow on target for Lopez
He takes this stage easily, sitting up a full 100m from the line to celebrate and still takes a 6-second time gap domination so far.
Areruya, Phinney, Formolo and Yates make up the top 5.
Its pain for the pure punchers again though Van Niekerk loses yet more time here and even further back Stannard would lose 2"19 after falling back into the De Bie group on the final climb
Lopez on the podium again, this has been a common occurrence this week.
Wandahl though not as familiar with the podium looks delighted after his brave ride in the break
