Greek Super League

With the summit approaching, the trio’s advantage has come tumbling down. Healy continues pushing hard but his team-mate Quinn is looking over his shoulder as Soudal, Visma and Lidl-Trek close in. Is that Mads Pedersen in the thick of it? Wow – superb climb from the Dane, who might try to go clear in the break in a bid to take point sin the intermediate sprint.

The connection is made just ahead of the summit with Paret-Peintre zipping clear with Carapaz in his wheel. It’s the Frenchman who pockets 10pts ahead of the Ecuadorian, who settles for 8pts. So, the Frenchman has closed the gap to 14pts in his pursuit of polka dots, with Pogacar’s lead in the KOM standings slashed.

It came back together after that strong group was caught by the likes of Thymen Arensman and Quinn Simmons, both pulling on the front of the pack.

We now have EF duo Ben Healy and Sean Quinn clear with the Swiss powerhouse Mauro Schmid of Jayco-AlUla in a pink-purple alliance off the front. They have around 15 seconds with the summit just over 2km up the road.

Egan Bernal, Damiano Caruso, Valentin Paret-Peintre and Richard Carapaz have joined Healy, but their gap over the pack is slimmer than Paret-Peintre’s waist.

The remnants of the break and those chasers were all swept up prior to an acceleration from Ben Healy, who has gone clear of the pack. The Irishman is currently on his own and keeps looking over his shoulder, as if urging reinforcements to follow.

Florian Vermeersch is the latest UAE rider to pop off the back, while Jasper Philipsen is already dropped, which might play into the hands of Mads Pedersen, if he can hold on and get some points in the intermediate sprint. A big ask, mind.

Gate and Askey have been dropped as Vinokurov, Abrahamsen and Le Berre ride on. They have four riders in pursuit: Sean Quinn (EF), Anders Johannessen (Uno-X) and Lotto Intermarche duo Liam Slock and Lennert Van Eetvelt. But the gaps are small and the front of the pack will very soon swallow them all up.