The Giro, my favourite tour of the year is only 2 weeks....

[Eugene Oppelt]

Cannondale policing on the front of the bunch - they don't seem happy with this one.

[Eugene Oppelt]

 

Once again, it's all back together. So, almost 40km into this stage and still we await a breakaway. The first climb of the day beings in just 10km time.

[Eugene Oppelt]

Arnaud Demare takes maximum points at the sprint, to make up some ground on points classification leader Giacomo Nizzolo. Andre Greipel, of course, was in the maglia rossa yesterday but pulled out of the race after his stage win.

[Eugene Oppelt]

And now we do seem to have our breakaway. And it's a big one!

There must be around 30 riders in this move, including - surprise surprise - Damiano Cunego. We'll get you all the names shortly but for now the pace in the bunch has been knocked off and they have nearly two minutes.

[Eugene Oppelt]

A number of high profile riders in this break, including Rojas, Heano, Cunego and Ulissi. The Lampre man has two men on the front driving the break though as the lead pushes out to 2'10. And more riders try and bridge up the road, Wellens is one of them. Some serious questions are being asked of Etixx here.

[Eugene Oppelt]

The break - wow

 

 

 

Matteo Montaguti (AG2R La Mondiale), Davide Malacarne, Andrey Zeits (Astana), Alessandro De Marchi (BMC), Simon Clarke, Moreno Moser, Ramunas Navardauskas (Cannondale), Jaco Venter, Johan Van Zyl (Dimension Data), Matteo Trentin, Lukasz Wisniowski (Etixx - QuickStep), Arnaud Démare (FDJ), Alexandre Kolobnev (Gazprom - RusVelo), Stefan Denifl (IAM Cycling), Diego Ulissi, Ilya Koshevoy, Sacha Modolo, Matej Mohorič (Lampre - Merida), Pim Ligthart (Lot Soudal), Carlos Betancur, jasha sütterlin, Joaquim Rojas (Movistar), Grega Bole, Damiano Cunego (NIPPO - Fantini), Bert De Backer (Giant - Alpecin), Enrico Battaglin, Maarten Tjallingi (LottoNL - Jumbo), Sebastian Henao, Christian Knees (Team Sky), Manuele Boaro (Tinkoff), Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek - Segafredo) and Matteo Busato (Wilier - Southeast)

[Eugene Oppelt]

 

116km remaining from 170km

 

At the moment Movistar have five men up the road. Etixx have one and they're not setting the pace at the front of the bunch.

[Eugene Oppelt]

And now Etixx react, putting five men on the front, one of the Jungels who is neatly tucked in. Up the road Lampre press on with Modolo setting the pace for Ulissi as we start to climb.

[Eugene Oppelt]

The gap to the breaks is down to 1'14 to se Etixx are shutting the move down. The Wellens group is somewhere in the middle.

[Eugene Oppelt]

The break are on a 10 per cent pitch at the moment as Lampre continue to hog the front. Riders, like Demare are being dropped from the break.

A little further back and Wellens has dropped the riders he attacked with and is chasing the Ulissi group on his own. Ulissi has 1'50 over the Jungels bunch at the momen

[Eugene Oppelt]

 

Wellens will be kicking himself after missing the move but he's trying to make amends with this long chase. The Belgian is cutting through riders who have already been dropped but Wellens only has a few seconds on the maglia rosa.

[Eugene Oppelt]

What a highly tactical day

The radios must be crackling

[Eugene Oppelt]

Trentin has been called back from the lead group and has been caught by the Wellens collective.

[Eugene Oppelt]

Modolo dropped from the lead group now as we see that Visconti is in the Wellens through. Movistar are trying everything to unsettle and isolate Jungels.

[Eugene Oppelt]

The stage has two tough climbs mid-stage –Montemaggiore (8.3km at 9.3%) and then the Crai (8.8km at 6.4% with 3km at over 10%), followed by 30km of flat road before two final climbs and a nerve-racking descent to the finish, on twisting country roads that ends just eight kilometres from the finish.

 

Both late climbs are all over 8%, with the Cima Porzus at 8.9% for virtually all of its 6.7km length. The Valle climb is a kilometre shorter but almost as equally steep and so will no doubt spark some kind of natural selection amongst the overall contenders.

 

(As described by tombeej earlier)

[Eugene Oppelt]

 

Denifl stil leads the race as Cunego, still in the break, takes a look out front to see what's going on up ahead.