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
Stage 9, Sunday 17
So, this was another day where everyone wanted to be in the breakaway, and on top of this, Decathlon wanted to win from the peloton.
Ciccone (๐ฎ๐น Lidl-Trek) had made so clear that he wanted to win the stage through a breakaway, that all his attempts were cancelled by others, and he wasn't in the breakaway that ultimately developed. But as a one-plan man/team, he tried again later in a climb at km 110 to jump from the peloton to the breakaway which was 2 minutes away. I thought that several strange things were happening:
Anyway, Ciccone๐ฎ๐น joined the breakaway and was brought into good position in the final climb, but of course he paid the sum of his efforts in the beginning of the stage, and in the chase. This was too much to beat the peloton which had always been kept at 2โ2ยฝ minutes by Decathlon.
Pellizari (๐ฎ๐น Bora), the GC favourite after Vingegaard (๐ฉ๐ฐ Visma) was dropped early; he is a bit sick. So Hindley surely becomes the team's leader.
A good surprise was the Pink jersey's Eulalio (๐ต๐น Barhain) performance. While he seemed to be struggling at first, he made a really good finish. Gee also was better. The shorter final climb was probably better for those guys with punchier capacities, than the long Blockhaus.