Here is the situation after 3 days of apathy and hospitalisations in Bulgary:
General time classification
It was only determined by the punchy 2^nd^ stage and a couple of time bonuses.
- Guillermo Silva ๐บ๐พ Astana
- Florian Stork ๐ฉ๐ช Tudor: +4โณ
- Egan Bernal ๐จ๐ด Ineos: '
- Thymen Arensman ๐ณ๐ฑ Ineos: +6โณ
- Julio Ciccone ๐ฎ๐น Lidl-Trek: '
- 29 riders: +10โณ ... and about the same number at 1โฒ
Points classification
- Paul Magnier ๐ซ๐ท Soudal-QS: 105 pts
- Jonathan Milan ๐ฎ๐น Lidl-Trek: 64
- Tobias Andresen ๐ฉ๐ฐ Decathlon: 42
- Madis Mihkels ๐ช๐ช EF: 32
- Diego Sevilla ๐ช๐ธ Polti: 28
Mountain classification
- Diego Sevilla ๐ช๐ธ Polti: 42
- Manuele Tarozzi ๐ฎ๐น Bardiani: 12
- Jonas Vingegaard ๐ฉ๐ฐ Visma: 9
- Mirco Maestri ๐ฎ๐น Polti: 8
- Allessandro Tonelli ๐ฎ๐น Polti: 6
Teams classification
- Astana ๐ฐ๐ฟ
- Tudor๐จ๐ญ '
- Uno-X ๐ณ๐ด '
- Movistar ๐ช๐ธ '
- RB Bora ๐ฉ๐ช '
- EF ๐บ๐ธ '
Stages (TODO: I shall add them progressively)
Stage 4, Tuesday 12
138 km, low difficulty (50 pts), 5 km sprint zone, 3โณ splits
An even shorter course than stage 1, with the same profile as stage 3, but a nastier last mile. A sprint is to be expected again, favouring the sprinters who can handle an uphill finish; even though a breakaway could have its chances in theory, as the line is closer to the climb than it was in stage 3.
Stage 5, Wednesday 13
203 km, medium difficulty (25 pts), 3km sprint zone, 1โณ splits
This stage is made for breakaways or punchers-climbers, but will they take their chance this time?
divulgรขche
first good stage!
trek didn't defend ciccone's pink jersey the other day, and now they let ciccone ride away from derek gee (they finished in the same group so i'm not sure if ciccone waited or gee caught him)
spoiler
bernal, :( i thought this was going to be his glorious return to GC racingAnd today Ciccone dropped (on purpose, I suppose), despite being more than 1 minute ahead of Gee in GC this morning...
Also, Arrieta (UAE) and Beloki (EF) passed Gee in GC because they were in the breakaway (the chase group, more exactly) and Gee was in the peloton. I don't know whether Lidl-Trek pulled the peloton at some point? I know Visma and Bahrain did.
Trek is a mess. No wins for milan, no pink for ciccone, no GEE CEE.... what the hell are they doing??
Well, overall, Lidl-Trek is having a bit of an annus horribilis, due to injuries.
For Ciccone, I imagine they are returning to the original, official plan where he was supposed to go only for stages; and hope for a top-10 by Gee.
Another bad news for Milan is that Magnier started demonstrating an interest in the Cyclamen jersey today. (He was chasing Milan when the latter was trying to form or join breakaways, so that the Italian wouldn't score big points at the Intermediate Sprint farther.)