This tour's only mountain stage, and probably the decider of the overall GC. Efimkin is the favourite for the stage along with Ghisalberti and Taaramäe, who's been doing excellently on the time trials. But we also have guys such as Ivan Basso, Walter Pedraza and Nuno Ribeiro here - so hopefully, we'll see some fireworks on the last mountain.
But who wants to wait for the last mountain when the 'fireworks' can begin on a short and medium steep climb at the very beginning of the race? Pre-stage favourite Vladimir Efimkin was 1'49 behind before today's stage, and that was obviously something he wanted to change as he attacked after just a few metres of the stage.
Or maybe he had just given up and was going for the mountain jersey instead... Either way, he was caught on the descent, and the only rider who decided to stay on the front was Rutkiewicz, and as no one really wanted to go with him, he had to have his chit chats with the race car instead.
His gap increased to 7'30 until the peloton started working, mainly with Sony-Ericsson protecting their leader's jersey. He did manage to the Mountain Classification points, though. Interestingly, a few of Vespa - Caffrey's riders attacked for Mountain Points and got a gap along with a few other riders, and instead of dropping back after the sprint, they decided to go for it: Stetina, Calazati (BMC), Vitor (Benfica), Tschopp (Starbucks), Osella (Olympus), Tonti and Bernucci (Vespa).
It didn't last for long, though, as the group was caught with 40 km to go by the Swedish constellation of Sony and IKEA. And in front, Rutkiewicz still had a gap of 4'23. And by taking a few more mountain points, he was now virtual leader of that classement.
And after a good effort, Rutkiewicz also managed to be the first to hit the mountain - still with Sony - Ericsson and IKEA doing all the work in the peloton. With 10 km to go, he still had a gap of 1'21 - but at this point, he was pretty much dead - and so was a lot of other riders who couldn't handle the steepness of the climb, including race leader Sebastian Lang. And in what seemed like a disastrous move by Sony-Ericsson, Pedraza and Ghisalberti dropped back to help the yellow jersey!
And while that happened, Ivan Basso launched the first attack and was immediately followed by Taaramäe, Efimkin, Kiserlovski and Ribeiro - and as they passed Rutkiewicz, he looked more demotivated than ever before. Several other riders tried attacking, but was far from having the same 'punch' as the before-mentioned riders, and instead, Olympus Air decided to lead out the peloton, trying to catch Basso and co.
All the attacks ended up with Taaramäe alone in front with Basso and Efimkin in a group shortly after. And then Kiserlovski and Ribeiro right after those two. At first, Taaramäe managed to expand his gap, but on the last 2 km, Efimkin took a long relay to make the gap a tad smaller. And with 1 km to go, we had Taarame in front of Efimkin with 21 seconds, Basso after Efimkin with 11 seconds, then Kiserlovski with 31 seconds to Basso and Ribeiro with 28 seconds up to Kiserlovski.
And with the riders being too tired to sprint, Taaramäe could take not only a stage win, but what also seems like a GC win here in Argentina. Efimkin also managed to get 2nd, but his work did pay off as he took the Mountain Jersey.
