The last .HC in August is held in France, in Plouay. At the end of the 9 laps we will know the name of this year’s GP Plouay winner. Even though he got the no.1 dossard, Gilbert is not rated by the game in the top 3 of the favorites of the day, those being: Ginanni, Kirchen and Trofimov
There were 8 riders in the day’s breakaway: Gatto, Dviri, Tonti, Van Groen, Wallays, Lloyd, Llundberg and Fernandez Oliveira
At the end of the 5th lap they had an advantage of almost 6 minutes, but there are still 100 kilometers before the finish line
The main chasers in the pack seem to be AON Global, Energie Diesel, Vespa and Kenda
And only one lap later they’ve lost almost half of their advantage. This is clearly not looking good for them
At the start of the 7th lap we had some attacks from the pack: Costa, Flugel and Rovira
The escapes entered the 8th lap of the race with only 33 seconds advantage over the new attackers
The chasers have won over the pack 40 seconds, which means that the main escapes have only a few seconds over a minute in front of the pack
The reason for that might be the appearance of Lego at the front of the pack
46 kilometers before the finish the attackers joined the breakaway
But some of the original escapes attacked and left them behind: Wallays, Van Groen, Lloyd, Fernandez Oliveira and Dviri
The others were caught by the pack with just 40 kilometers left from the race
The leaders seem to be riding quite well at the moment, having an advantage of 1 minute over the pack
And we had the first crash of the day. Doi went down but he didn’t bring anyone else down with him
In front Fernandez Oliveira was a little bit stronger than the other escapes and he left them behind
While the pack lead by Lego, AON Global and Jack Wolfskin is coming faster and faster
And on the last climb of the 8th lap the chasing group with Van Groen, Dviri, Wallays and Lloyd was caught
Few moments later we had the first big attack of the day: Hermans
Vicioso, Gasparotto and Ben Hasser were right behind him, as they soon caught Fernandez Oliveira
Leukemans also joins the group, while Fernandez Oliveira seems to be dead
Trofimov, Ginanni, Nocentini, Efimkin and Gil also attacked but they didn’t manage to make a gap and join the leaders
In front Hermans seems to have made a gap between him and his 4 chasers, which are Ben Hasser, Vicioso, Gasparotto and Leukemans
But he was brought back in the group before the last lap. The leading group entered the 9th and the last lap with an advantage of 50 seconds over the pack
But behind them Ginanni attacked and he is most likely to bring some other big names after him
And those names are: Fedrigo, Nocentini, Trofimov and Colom
The managed to join the leaders pretty soon but the pack isn’t really far behind them
Still Ginanni, Fedrigo, Nocentini and Trofimov looked way stronger than the others and continued the race in 4 for an while
Behind more and more riders attacked from the pack. The first one to do so was Gilbert
He was quickly followed by Gil and Kirchen
Still the stronger riders on the first climb of the lap seemed to be Nocentini and Trofimov and they lead the race with just 20km left
25 seconds behind them, Gilbert is leading a stretched group of chasers, which contains pretty much all the favorites
On a little ascent before the final one Hermans and Efimkin attacked
They soon joined the leaders but they brought the whole group with them, letting others the possibility to try an attack
Gil, Kirchen, Gilbert and Ginanni tried it as the others seemed pretty tired
But they weren’t able to make the difference
With just 10 kilometers left we have in front a group of 14 riders: Efimkin, Gil, Nocentini, Kessler, Kirchen, Fedrigo, Van Garderen, Bertagnolli, Hermans, Ginnanni, Trofimov, Ghisalberti, Gilbert and Leukemans
Gil is leading the group, followed by Kessler and Kirchen as they reached the final slopes of the day
With just 7 km left from the race, Gil is still leading group, while no one seems able to attack
With 5 kilometers left we are already on the downhill section and still no one had attacked. But Gil is gone from the front of the group
That’s because he crashed bringing Bertagnolli and Ginanni down with him as well!
Even though Sony Ericsson, Kenda, Nespresso and Wiggle have all 2 riders in the leading group, Sony Ericsson are the only ones that try a team strategy for the sprint
3 kilometers before the finish Kessler is leading, followed by Kirchen, Van Garderen, Nocentini and Gilbert
The sprint starts one kilometer later, with Kessler still in front of the group, while the best sprinter from this group, Trofimov, is caught behind in Ghisalberti’s wheel
Kessler enters the last kilometer in the lead, but Kirchen and Van Garderen are right behind him
500 meters before the finish, Kessler loses the lead to Kirchen
Van Garderen, Nocentini and Gilbert are also there but it seems impossible to stop Kirchen
And Kirchen takes the last HC races of the month. Kessler hanged on to take the second place in front of Van Garderen, Nocentini and Gilbert. Fedrigo, Efimkin, Hermans and Leukemans took the following 4 places
Bad strategy there for Sony Ericsson as Ghisalberti and Trofimov finished on the last places in the leading group and Trofimov could have had a nice chance to take the win, being the best sprinter in the leading group
