Hondo wins in bizarre sprint stage

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German Danilo Hondo took his second win of the season for his new PSK Whirlpool team in the seventh stage of the Tour of Portugal on Thursday. The final kilometre was riddled with roundabouts and curves which made for a somewhat dangerous approach to the line, but amazingly, the riders made it through unscathed, albeit with a bit of bumping.

Candido Barbosa, the winner of two stages so far, lost some of his momentum in the melee and had to be content with second place ahead of Lampre's Mauro Santambrogio and stage two winner Manuel Cardoso.

The yellow jersey did not change hands on what many considered to be a sprint stage. Nuno Ribeiro (Liberty Seguros) finished safely in the peloton to hold onto his overall lead.

But what should have been a stage for LPR's ace sprinter Alessandro Petacchi went all wrong with 30km to go when half of the peloton chose the wrong side of a roundabout and would up off-course.

The half including Petacchi came to a screeching halt when they wound up behind the crowds watching the other half of the race go by and were faced with a street full of parked cars. Some riders doubled back, while others scooted through the barricades which lined the circuit and got back on course.

The furious chase back to the peloton spelled the end of Petacchi on the final category three climb of the day, leaving the door open for the scrappy Hondo to claim the win.

Hondo had been part of the day-long 12-man  breakaway, and was one of the last to be caught on the final climb. He was part of a surviving three-man group together with Oleg Chuzhda (Contentpolis-Ampo) and Antonio Piedra (Andalucia - Cajasur). But Piedra took the wrong turn at a roundabout and had to chase back up to the pair, a move which lost the breakaway much of its momentum.

The race came back together on the descent with 6km to go, and while the Palmeiras Resort team looked to set up the win for its man Barbosa, it was Hondo who picked the right line through the technical finish to take the win for the Czech squad.