194 riders left Viveiro in the rain at 13:33. Luis Mas (Caja Rural), injured in a crash after the finish of yesterday's stage 5, did not start. From the flag, two riders surged, Portugal's Tiago Machado (Katusha) and France's Julien Morice (Direct Energie). Their lead quickly increased and reached 6:30 after A00 km over a peloton led by Darwin Atapuma's BMC team-mates and by Trek-Segafredo's Julien Bernard, anticipating a sprint for Niccolo Bonifazio.
The conditions were too hard for Brazil's Murilo Fischer (FDJ), who called it quits with stomach problems.
Some 75 km from the finish, Machado dropped Morice and went on his own as the bunch had cut the gap down to 3:30. On his own, the Portuguese widened the gap and snatched the points at the intermediate sprint (Km 98) ahead of Gianni Meersman (Etixx-Quick Step) and was first at the top of the only ascent of the day, Puerto de Marco de Alvare (3rd cat, km 118.8). In the climb, Belgium's Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) collected two points to move level with KOM leader Alexandre Geniez (FDJ) on 10 points.
With 40 km to go, the teams with a solid finisher - Etixx-Quick Step, Trek-Segafredo and Giant-Alpecin - raised the tempo and the gap went down.
Machado was reeled in 14 km from the line by the peloton, led by Team Sky and Movistar. In the last ten kilometers, the teams with sprinters and the ones with GC leaders fought for front positions as the bump two kilometers from the line could also favour attacks. They came from Belgian champion Philippe Gilbert (BMC) and Australia's Simon Clarke (Cannondale-Drapac) who surged in the hill but were caught under the red flame.
The stage was set for a bunch sprint, but it was peculiar one as two thirds of the peloton were held up by a massive crash, whose main victim was Lotto N-Jumbo leader Steven Kruijswijk. Perfectly led out by his team-mates, Meersman surged for an impeccable stage victory over a group of some 20 riders, among which Alejandro Valverde and Chris Froome.
