Australian wins final stage, Rogina wins yellow jersey

What did today's stage winner Brett Lancaster from Australia say: "We were excellent on the Tour of Slovenia. We won two stages and Wesley was really close in the second stage, when he lost the victory after photo finish. This was my second time racing in Slovenia, I feel more and more at home."

Even though the Adria riders didn't get to the podium area (Matej Mugerli took the 4th place) they won't be sad today, because their member Radoslav Rogina from Croatia won the overall classification. Slovenians haven't won a Tour of Slovenia stage for the first time after 2007.

15.52, 4 km to the finish line: The teams with their sprinters are already in the front. A fight for the best position before the sprint start begins.

15.50: The last lap begins. Adria from Novo Mesto is in front of the peloton. We are in for an interesting finish sprint.

15.45: In the front of the peloton are the Lampre and Adria teams, they have 10 km to the finish line.

15.40: The peloton caught up with the five breakaway riders and “swallowed” them. Now they continue together, they started the second lap through Novo Mesto.

15.33, 20 km to the finish line: The peloton will catch up with the five breakaway riders, the chasers can already see them.

15.30, 25 km to the finishing line: The riders are already in Novo Mesto, where the stage will finish. The peloton still does not want to catch up with the breakaway riders, who are still 50 seconds ahead.

15.16, 122 km: The breakaway riders are only 53 seconds ahead of the peloton. It is clear now that the fourth stage winner will be decided in the finishing sprint.

15.15: The Lampre-Merida riders are dictating the tempo in the front of the peloton. They want to catch up with the breakaway rider, because they have Maximiliano Richeze (Argentina) among them—he is their favourite for today's finishing peloton sprint.

15.05: The riders finished the Šentjernej intermediate sprint, the next to last intermediate sprint in the race. The breakaway riders are 1 minute ahead of the yellow jersey, but the peloton has everything under control. It will catch up with the breakaway rider when it will want to.

15.00, 111 km: The breakaway riders' lead is melting, they are only 50 seconds ahead of the yellow jersey. The Lampre team is the most deserving for this, it dictates a fast tempo.

14.50: The riders are slowly approaching the next to last intermediate sprint in Šentjernej. It is frequently called the “cock-a-doodle-doo town”. It is well known for roosters, which is depicted in the town's coat-of-arms—it features a singing rooster.

14.40, 100 km: The breakaway drivers' lead is changing constantly, currently they are 2 min 5 s ahead of the peloton, where the GreenEdge team dictates the tempo. The wind is now blowing in riders' chest, which is making their work more difficult.

14.30: The five breakaway riders used the peloton rest well and increased their leat to 2 min 40 s.

14.28: The Orica-GreenEdge team is currently in the front of the peloton.

14.20: The buffet was set up at the 83 km mark. The riders have a chance to regain their strength, but this slowed down the peloton tempo. The breakaway riders are happily increasing their lead.

14.15: The riders finished one half of the race in Ornuška Vas. Patrik Sinkewitz (Germany) jumped from the peloton, but his attempt to break away was soon neutralized. This woke up the peloton, which sped up and is only 1 min 30 s behind the breakaway riders.

14.05: The riders passed the last mountain finish (Trebelno) on this year's Tour of Slovenia. The peloton is exactly 2 min 50 s behind the breakaway riders.

13.57: The tempo in the peloton is dictated by the Adria and Lampre teams. The breakaway riders are still about 3 minutes ahead of the peloton.

13.50: The riders passed the 68 km mark and are climbing to Trebelno. The breakaway riders are now 3 min 15 s ahead of the peloton. The unlucky Italian, who was bitten by an unknown insect, received treatment from the support vehicle and now continues the race. Otherwise, there have been no changes.

An interesting fact: Sander Armee from Belgium, this year a member of the Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise team supposedly reached an oral agreement with the Lotto-Belisol team from Belgium, reports the Belgian Het Laatste Nieuws web portal. Armee is on the 29th place in Tour of Slovenia overall classification and is supposed to be a member of the team with the Pro Team licence in the next season. The superstar of his new team is Andre Greipel, Germany.

13.35, 56 km: The riders just raced through the village of Puščava (the name means desert). There are of course no camels or cacti, it is only a pleasant village in Lower Carniola.

13.28, 50 km: No changes, the five breakaway riders are still running away from the peloton, but the Adria Mobil team doesn't allow them to run too far away. The peloton is 2 min 40 s behind the leading quintet.

13.19: The breakaway riders have increased their advantage even more; now they are 3 minutes ahead of the peloton.

13.15: The riders are constantly calling the support vehicles to bring them water, because it's really hot. One hour of the last stage is behind them and they have raced 44.1 kilometres.

13.10, 38 km: None of the breakaway riders can endanger Rogina's first place in the overall classification. The best of the breakaways is Tim Declercq, Belgium (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise), who lags almost 13 minutes behind the Croatian.

13.00: The riders already passed the Studenec mountain finish. The leading five riders are advancing their lead. They are already 2 min 25 s ahead of the peloton, where, as expected, the tempo is dictated by Adria Mobil, the team with the yellow jersey.

12.48, 25 km: The breakaway riders are even further ahead of the peloton, where Adria Mobil riders dictate the tempo. The riders are approaching Studenec, the first mountain finish.

12.45: Five riders managed to break away from the peloton on the 19 km mark. Michael Rodriguez (Colombia), Tim Declercq (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Pavel Kočetkov (RusVelo), Mauro Finetto (Vini Fantini-Selle Italia) and Matteo Di Serafino (Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela) are 1 min 10 s ahead of the peloton.

An interesting fact: This year, it can happen that no Slovenian rider will win a Tour of Slovenia stage. This happened only once before in 20 years of Tour of Slovenia—in 2007, Italian riders won all the stages. But in 2006, only Slovenian riders won all the stages: Borut Božič and Tomaž Nose won two stages each.

12.35, 15 km: No rider broke away for more than 50 meters, the peloton with the Adria team in the front catches up with all the breakaway riders.

12.25: The riders are enjoying in beautiful and hot weather (28 °C). They have some help from the wind and their average speed is really high. The peloton doesn't allow riders to break away.

12.20: There have been attempts to break away from the start, but no one succeeded so far.

12.20: 108 riders started the last stage, 117 riders applied for the time trial on Thursday.

12.15: The 20th Tour of Slovenia last stage has officially begun. As usually, the riders will finish the stage in Novo Mesto, where we expect to see a final peloton sprint.

12.00The caravan of 107 riders begins this year's Tour of Slovenia last stage. Like always, they start packed together, but it will be on in approximately 12 minutes! The leading rider Radoslav Rogina was welcomed with the song Teraj Žestoko by Miro Škoro on the start in Brežice; the song is supposed to give him additional strength.

11.58: What did Primož Roglič, Adria rider say before the last stage: “I will not be attacking today, because I will help bring Rogina safely back to Novo Mesto.” When asked, how he feels in the dark blue jersey, he said: “It's only hotter.”

10.55: Today, the riders will compete for the stage victory. The Adria Mobil team has no rider who could win the final peloton sprint in Novo Mesto. It would be great if we would be wrong, but there are quite a few fast riders in the peloton. The last three Slovenians who won the Tour of Slovenia last stage with finish in Novo Mesto were Marko Kump (2009), Borut Božič (2006) and Boštjan Mervar (2003). Mervar has been driving in the Adria Mobil support vehicle for the past few years, while Kump and Božič don't take part on the race anymore.

10.57: In theory, no Slovenian can count on stage victory today. There are quite a few foreign riders, but Enrico Rossi (Italy) is the most notable among them. He is a member of the Meridiana Kamen team and won the Tour of Slovenia stage with finish in Novo Mesto in 2007. The other favourites are fast Brett Lancaster, Fabio Felline and ten others.

10.58: There is one more interesting fact: the riders won't have so much speed on the Kandija Bridge in Novo Mesto, because the organizers set up the last kilometre of the route differently.

This stage won't be easy, but we can expect that the winner will be determined in the final peloton sprint. Before that, the riders will sweat on the first two 3rd category mountain finishes in the first half of the stage. The competition for the dark blue jersey for the Mountains classification winner is still open. But Rogina can lose only to his team-mate Primož Roglič and Colombian Dalivier Ospina, who has the same amount of points as Rogina. The fight for the green jersey of the overall winner is still open, while there won't be any surprises in the competition for the yellow and the white jersey if the stage finishes as expected.