Etoile: AG2R Sweep!

Or maybe a Civil War? ....not quite Lloyd Mondory was the one celebrating at the finish line while his teammate Anthony Ravard was forced yet again to settle for 2nd...Not that he was complaining though, because last time I checked the GC lead wasn't a bad consolation prize.

But he will have quite a few people keeping tabs on him tomorrow, because yet again the field stayed together for a bunch finish and there are still 82 riders within 12 seconds of the lead.

12 seconds is essentially nothing in the cycling world, but 8 minutes is a completely different story. That was the situation for Bram Schmitz, who launched a daring solo attack on the 2nd early climb of the day and held out front for quite some time, but very few riders can hold up alone under the heat of a chasing peloton and he cracked as soon as the riders began the final 6 finishing laps around St Ambroix.

Pavel Brutt, Alexandre Pichot, and Lieuwe Westra saw their chance to attack and formed another 3 man group off the front, but again the peloton would not be denied and they were caught in the final few ks.

But I'm really not exactly sure how it ended up being teammate vs teammate in the final sprint showdown. Mondory said that his assignment was to be Ravard's leadout and that they were separated in the final kilometer so he decided to give it a go himself. Meanwhile, Ravard had already gotten himself into sprinting position and even said that he tried to block Mondory (because he obviously didn't know it was his teammate) from passing. But it was Lloyd who had the speed today and he finds himself trailing Ravard by just 2 seconds (because of bonus time) after the 2nd stage.

Many of the top contenders who survived yesterday also stayed with the bunch today, so there really wasn't much of a shake-up in the GC. As I said before, with so many riders so close in the classification it really is anybody's race.
Stage Results
1. Lloyd Mondory
2. Anthony Ravard
3. Aldo Illesic

General Classification
1. Anthony Ravard
2. Lloyd Mondory -2
3. Yauheni Hutarovich -2
4. Bjorne Leukemans -8
5. Aldo Illesic -8
6. Johnny Hoogerland -9
7. Sebastien Chavanel -9
8. Staf Scheirlinckx -10
9. Kruopis Aidis -10
10. Steven Van Vooren -10

Points
Anthony Ravard (40)

KOM
Bram Schmitz (12)

Teams
AG2R La Mondiale