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Stage 9 Giza - Egypt



As the TdM caravan headed towards the African continent, yesterday was the last chance for the heavier riders to compete for a stage win. As usual, the 4th slot was by far the most occupied, having a record of 148 riders at the start line. The race was fast and the winning riders ended up with an average speed above 45 km/h. Starting and finishing just outside of Cairo, Egypt, the stage was marked as flat but did include two rises that ended up dividing the fields. 

The bunch sprint that was the end of the last flat stage, included the majority of the riders in the slots – that was not the case here, where only a handful of riders were left to battle for the win. Matt Usborne took an impressive 2nd stage win followed by Sebastian Buschmann and Igor Kopse to round off the podium. Since Raul Lopez was not present on yesterday's stage, John Sammut took the lead in the sprinters' competition with his 9th place on the stage, followed by Kenneth Vansina and Mads Schnoor who took 16th and 5th place on the stage respectively. 

 Even though the stage was flat, the top headline of the day is still within the GC competition where leader Levien Falk, had to abandon due to injury. Furthermore, 3rd placed Raul Lopez did not complete the stage, which shakes up thinks at the top. James Melville is the new overall leader, with John Sammut in 2nd, 4 minutes, and 14 seconds down, and Andrzej Krajewski rounding off the podium almost ten minutes behind Melville. The Polish rider who has successfully crawled through the ranks with some incredible performances in the mountains must be eager to defend his podium, with Kenneth Vansina at a comfortable distance more than three minutes down. 

Today's stage might not be hard enough, to shake up the GC, but both the mountain and the sprint competition are still in play. It will be interesting to see if Levien Falk has changed his focus from GC to the mountain competition, and simply skipping yesterday's flat stage, to secure the overall win. If that is the case, he is a very likely winner today. Both James Melville and Steve Taylor must have their eyes on the mountains competition as well. After some incredible performances in the high mountains, Steve Taylor did a slower run yesterday, losing time in the overall GC, which might indicate that he wants to be fresh for the mountains today. Even though there are still 600 points left to contest in the sprint competition, John Sammut looks like a very likely overall winner. He will most likely be able to follow the lead group today, scoring a comfortable amount of points, together with the points he will get from the TTT on Saturday, it will be hard for anyone to contest him. That is probably not the main focus for Sammut at the moment, as he needs to make up some time, if he wants to contest Melville for the overall with the Galibier on the horizon!

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