Welcome to Thailand for the Nakhon Ratchasima Trophy! Let's have a look at the organisation's favourites, and start the race! You can also watch the race, as recorded by Abhishek, on youtube: https://www.youtu...ilyManGame
Carsi and Zariff not even mentioned, which is interesting. Also didn't expect to see Noppe on the list, but the race organisation thinks in mysterious ways.
Last year the breakaway held until the end, so of course there is quite some interest in the peloton to join the break again. The route also seems to be interesting for the breakaway, even though the race is rated flat there are quite some uphill (3 to 5 per cent) and downhill sectors with a lot of curves. The nine names of the riders in the break are seen on the picture. Apart from old dogs Dumoulin, Van Garderen and slightly older dog Bremanis we see mostly younger, developing riders. Cervelo and SEE Turtles both with a duo up front.
The maximum gap was over five minutes, with around 100 km to the finish line it has been reduced to under three minutes. Teams working at the front of the peloton include Glanbia, Simba Cement, Euskadi, Würth and Duvel.
The constant turning and accelerating causes splits to appear with 40 km to go! Among the victims currently are Dakteris and Habtom. The nine leaders only with a minute left over the peloton now.
With 33 and 25 km to go respectively, Arrieta and Rodriguez try their luck in the breakaway. Neither of them gets away though. The peloton currently not coming closer than one minute, while other interesting riders such as Tivani, Altanzul and Krieger are now caught at the wrong side of a new split.
Simba Cement and Glanbia try, but are unable to bring the peloton closer than 40 seconds to the nine leaders with 12 km to go. Up front Van Garderen was unable to get away from the other eight leaders, but now there's movement in the peloton as well! Arashiro attacks, Dewulf follows! Suter also reacts and tries to bridge the gap towards the Japanese and Belgian!
The Lierse rider joins the other two as they pass a tired Obando, the first rider to be dropped from the breakaway. The eight leaders now have a thirty second gap over the three behind, and an addtional thirty seconds over what's left of the peloton. 10 km remaining!
Van Garderen now dropped from the leading group, as with six km to go the three chasers are still thirty seconds behind! The peloton at an additional fourty seconds, so for the second year in a row the Nakhon Ratchasima Trophy could be won by the break!
The race is just too long for Hilcona's talent Arrieta, as he gets dropped by the other six leaders with only 3 km to go! The chasers and the peloton still at 30 seconds and more, who is going to take the win out of the six remaining breakaway riders?!
Cervelo still with two riders up front, as Pickrell seems to sacrifice his own chances to keep them ahead. Can teammate Stroll finish it in the sprint?
200 metres left! Revelo, Stroll or Bremanis?!
Revelo!!!! The next big Ecuadorian thing was signed by seancoll to show some great things in the future, and most of all in the mountains and hills, but the man proves he's already capable of doing great things, and he can even win a flat sprint! The Ecuadorian proves to be the freshest man at the end, surely also thanks to the help of domestique and other Ecuadorian talent Obando, what a way to introduce yourself to the world of cycling! Zain - Omantel will surely be happy with Bremanis' second place, whereas just as in Gisborne Cervelo scores well with Stroll and Pickrell in third and fourth.
Dumoulin and Rodriguez would have definitely signed for a fifth and sixth place at the start line this morning, so I assume their managers will also be able to live with this outcome.
At thirty seconds of winner Revelo the chasers and peloton have come together in their sprint. The rest of the top 10 is completed by sprinters Zhao (7th), Kennett (8th), late attacker Suter (9th) and other sprinter Riabushenko (10th).
