Today's stage: Long hilly stage that ended in a limited bunch sprint with some of the bigger name sprinters not in the mix at the end
Who won the stage? Edvald Boasson Hagen (Norway, Team Sky) took the sprint at the end beating Matt Goss (Australia, HTC-High Road) and Yellow Jersey Thor Hushovd (Norway, Garmin-Cervelo).
What matters in the GC race? Among the contenders, Levi Leipheimer (USA, Radio Shack) surrendered over a minute today, likely ending his chances as teammates and co-leaders Andreas Kloden (Germany) and Chris Horner (USA) are his equal in the mountains and will be the protected riders. The other favorites remain where they were (all finished in the bunch and Hushovd retained his yellow jersey for another day.
What matters in the other competitions?
Green Jersey (best sprinter): JJ Rojas (Spain, Team Movistar) was relegated and lost his intermediate sprint points yesterday. That gave former race leader Philippe Gilbert (Belgium, Omega-Pharma Lotto) the green jersey today that he retained over Rojas by a very slim margin.
Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountains): Johnny Hoogerland (Netherlands, Vacansoleil) took the Pola Dot jersey after claiming points in the daily breakaway for the second time this week. Once again though, we still don't know the real contenders here until we hit some bigger mountains.
White Jersey (best young rider): No changes here as Geraint Thomas (UK, Team Sky) leads and Robert Gesink (Netherlands, Rabobank) is an overwhelming favorite. Gesink has struggled at times since crashing yesterday though.
Biggest surprise: Boasson Hagen outsprinted his competition to take the stage. He seems like a younger version of Hushovd, right down to the Norweigian nationality.
Biggest disappointment: Mark Cavendish (UK, HTC-High Road) and Tyler Farrar (USA, Garmin-Cervelo) were dropped from the lead group and were unable to contest the sprint. Too bad as they are the two best sprinters in the world.
Other items of note: We had two more riders drop out of the race today. Ivan Velasco (Spain, Euskatel) didn't take the start as expected after a big crash late in yesterday's stage. Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus, Movistar) finished outside the time limit... Cavendish did take the top points for the field at the intermediate sprint check quite easily with a great lead out from his team
What is coming tomorrow? Bunch sprint. Flat as a pancake stage with the intermediate sprint just 25.5 km from the finish the breakaway should be caught before then for maximum points to be available.
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