Not too dissimilar to yesterdays parcours, but with the final climb much closer to the finish there is the chance for the launch pad for a winning move.
Pokerstars stunned everyone with José Rujano producing a strong pace on yesterdays late climb to drop all of his GC rivals. His gain of 71 seconds is perhaps not terminal to everyone else's chances but if food for thought as we go through todays stage.
The break is a bit smaller today being made up of just 5 riders:
Maxim Belkov Peter Stetina Jairo Agudelo Tosh Van der Sande
and Georg Preidler
It's a decent climbing group with Agudelo and Stetina particularly dangerous. Neither manage to pick up any time though on the first sprint with Van der Sande taking it over Belkov and Priedler. Stetina cannot make an impression on the first climb either with Agudelo taking to opener ahead of Belkov and Preidler. The climbs are worth slightly more points today than they were yesterday so Cristiano Salerno's lead is under threat.
The pack though are lead by Saab-Scania and Focussed, Theo Eltink doing a lot of the grunt work.
The chase then is quite well organised and as Van der Sande takes the second sprint over Belkov and Agudelo the gap is at 4.26 with 50km to go.
Looking to nail things back we have Vespa and once again Pokerstars lending a hand to the pacing.
The third and final sprint is taken by Belkov over Agudelo and Stetina, all five of the break were caught behind that split yesterday so these sprints are perhaps not such a big deal. Then again the gap is 2.41 with 27.5km to go so Belkov having taken the most amount of time (14 seconds) is leader on the road.
Frustrated at the pace not quite being hot enough to catch the break Domenico Pozzovivo using recent Protour race form attacks as we reach the days late climb.
Giovanni Visconti and Jurgen Van den Broeck bridge across.
Visconti was in that lead group yesterday so is a real threat to Van Hummel's leaders jersey, however he struggles to remain with the power duo of Pozzovivo and Van den Broeck. The Vespa and Pirelli leaders bridge across to the break before the top of the climb, with Visconit about 30 seconds back.
Pokerstars realise that the 71 seconds they gained yesterday could be slipping away between Rujano and Van den Broeck/Pozzovivo. His team are on the front along with Ferrari, Van Hummel is hanging tough but no Saab riders indicates that he perhaps is close to his limit.
Pokerstars have distanced some favourites on this hill once again with the likes of
Vladimir Efimkin
Sergei Kolesnikov Fabio Duarte and super climber Jose Alarcon tailed off.
Unaware of his team leaders plight Agudelo takes the King of the Mountains prime to go into the lead of that competition. Stetina is second on the climb ahead of Preidler, so no-one else really makes a big move.
Pozzovivo, Van den Broeck and Visconti cannot get away from the break and seem to sit up slightly as Pokerstars keep the pace high keeping the gap to the lead group to under a minute and also keeping the Alarcon group firmly behind.
15km to go and they make the catch the gap back to Alarcon, Efimkin, Duarte and co is 1.46, this is looking bad for them.
Van den Broeck and Pozzivivo try another move on the descent, both are clearly hungry to try and get something from this hilly stage.
Meanwhile Alarcon himself has come to the front of the chase group but he is only able to shave off the odd second of the gap. It's the second successive day he has been caught out, one wonders what is going through the Venezuelan's mind.
Pozzovivo and Van den Broeck are caught with 5km remaining Pokerstars again doing most of the work. Our lead group of 28 riders incidently still contains race leader Kenny Van Hummel who just might retain the lead today.
The sprint is pretty chaotic with no lead outs once again, you have to wonder why Lars Petter Nordhaug
is leading things out. Sitting well on his wheel though is GC contender Marco Marzano Jurgen Van den Broeck
is sitting in about 5th place just ahead of Domenico Pozzovivo
Under the kite and Marzano takes the lead with Arnold Jeannesson Cristiano Salerno Theo Eltink
and Jurgen Van Goolen
paying the closest order.
It's a case of timing though as Marzono can only keep his nose out front for 300 or so metres, before Jeannasson hits the front with Salerno coming on the outside and Pozzovivo coming on the inside.
Pozzovivo, Van den Broeck and also Visconti all attacked earlier but still are finishing the fastest here and Jeanneson hits the brick wall with 300m to go.
Pozzovivo takes the stage win, Van den Broeck look squeezed out a bit finishes third behind Salerno.
Salerno loses the King of the Mountains jersey to Agudelo but will gain the points jersey and moves to second on GC. Van Hummel didn't have the energy to sprint but remained in the lead group which is a pretty good performance from him to retain the leaders jersey.
The big GC news though is that Alarcon, along with Duarte and Efimkin lose 1 minute and 33 seconds. Osella, Sicard and Kolesnikov are also in this second group.