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In With a Chance
After his heroic effort to finish Stage 11 and to do it inside of the time limited the leader for Garmin Sharp, Andrew Talansky, decided with his team to not take to the start for Stage 12, the pain was too much. All involved thought it would be better for him to recover and finish the season strong, than to push on possibly causing serious damage with no hope of getting back into the podium hunt. Sebastien Lengeveld took up the mantle for his fallen leader, he was the first to start the break at only 5 kilometers of racing before being joined by Simon Clark (Orica GreenEdge), David De La Cruz (NetApp-Endura), Florian Vachon (Bretagne-Seche) and Gregory Rast (Trek Factory Racing). The stage looked like a good opportunity for the break away to succeed, it was too hilly for most of the sprinters and not steep enough for the climbers to carry the day. So to quote Paul Sherwen, "The break is in with a chance."