The sprinters have bided their times during the last three stages, all looking forward to today's and tomorrow's stages. While Thursday's route is one for the pure sprinters, today's course is a lot more tricky with two smaller climbs in the final part of the race. While this may rule out many of the fast men, the strongest of those all fancy their chances in today's hard final. Starting at 14.15 you can follow all the action on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

For the third day in a row the riders will travel more than 200km as they turn around and head north along the Adriatic coast after having reached the Italian heel in yesterday's stage. The riders will climb the small category 4 climb to Cipolletto (4,0km, 3,2%) after 37,2km as they travel across the Italian mainland to reach the coast and from then on the riders start a long flat run up the coast. Once again the pure sprinters will, however, be denied a perfect opportunity as the race turns left and heads inland after 178,2km to tackle the category 4 Montescaglioso climb (4,5km, 5,7%). From the top 20,3km remain and they consist of a small descent followed by a gradual climb up to Matera. The ascent is not steep but will make sure that this is certainly not a day for the pure sprinters and instead the classics specialists and strongest of the fast men will relish the opportunity to take some early success in the race. The last 4,85km are rolling and the final kilometer has an average gradient of 2,6%.

The Argos-Shimano and Orica-GreenEdge teams have both marked this stage out as one of their key opportunities to take the stage win which remain the main objective of both teams in this Giro. John Degenkolb and Matthew Goss both handle short climbs really well and they will find the gradual incline in the last kilometer to their liking. Both squads saved energy yesterday to be ready for today and their eagerness to contest a final sprint rules out any possibility for a successful long-distance breakaway.

The most likely outcome of the stage is certainly a bunch kick with some of the peloton's strongest men coming to the fore. There is little doubt that Movistar with Francisco Ventoso, Bardiani with Enrico Battaglin and Sacha Modolo, Argos with Degenkolb and Orica-GreenEdge with Goss will do what they can to set a hard tempo on the first of the final two ascents to get rid of Mark Cavendish and then they will keep the tempo up on the last gradual ascent to prevent the Manxman from getting back on. Expect to see the likes of Ventoso, Visconti, Battaglin, Modolo, Degenkolb, Goss, Bole, Marcato, Felline, Nizzolo and Bennati battle it out of the tough finishing straight.

Their teams will, however, have to do plenty of work to keep everything together in the final part of the race as we are certain to see plenty of attacks on the last two climbs. A rider like Filippo Pozzato and maybe even Visconti and Marcato are eager to show off their aggressive nature and have certainly also marked out today's stage as an obvious opportunity. Nonetheless, it will be hard for them to keep an advantage all the way to the finish as the final 3km follow straight urban avenues along which it is difficult to keep the peloton at bay. It will not be for a lack of trying but it remains highly unlikely that we will see another scenario than a final sprint in Materata.

CyclingQuotes' stage winner picks: John Degenkolb, Enrico Battaglin, Matthew Goss

Outsiders: Francisco Ventoso, Giacomo Nizzolo, Elia Viviani