A hard day of racing saw some rolling terrain in the opening half of the stage before a closing 70 kilometres that was jam-packed with challenging climbs. From the start the pace was high with lots of attacks and eventually the elastic snapped and a group of 19 went clear that included Team dsm-firmenich PostNL’s Development program’s Oliver Peace. Working well as a group, the break held onto a three minute advantage over some chasers as they hit the climbs in the finale, but there the pace went up. Peace rode strongly as the group thinned down to single-digits in size, but he too eventually had to let go of the wheels with around 40 kilometres to go. From there, he found a nice group and rode it in to the finish.
Peace said: “It was a really tough one today. Me and Ryan were really trying to make the break today. It eventually went after nearly two hours and I could bridge across with a few others. I tried to hang on for a while on the climbs, but then just settled into a pace for the last few and kept pressing to the finish in my group.”