The 3rd South African race of the season, and this time it's one for the sprinters. But not for the South African sprinters it seems. The teams of Juan van Heerden, his brother Christoff van Heerden and also Daryl Impey, are all absent - and with Nolan Hoffman in the ProTour - that only leaves Red Bull's Jamie Ball, a rider unlikely to feature in a sprint featuring the likes of Peter Kennaugh, Gerald Ciolek, Francisco Ventoso, Tomas Vaitkus, Michael Vanderaerden, Juan Pablo Forero, Lars Croket and others.
3 riders went away in the break - surprisingly including Santander's Galdos. You would have expected his role here to be as a lead out for Ventoso. With Galdos are Dviri and Bochmann
Their lead is 3 minutes when Scholz also gets away from the pack
The chase is dominated by the Red and Black clad teams of 100% Me and Lego
Scholz is set to be caught as we approach 30km to go - but theres a few attacks. Grychenko, Scholz' teammate Abakoumov and surprisingly - Tomas Vaitkus
Abakoumov cant keep up but the situation with 16km to go as the riders take a short steep 6% climb, is as follows.
Dviri, Galdos and Bochmann lead - although the Dane has stopped relaying because teammate Vaitkus is chasing at 45 seconds. Vaitkus is with Grychenko and Scholz, but receiving no support - with Petronas and Milka now helping 100% Me and Lego, along with Red Bull, in chasing the attackers
Into 10km to go - Bochmann attacks!
No response from Dviri or Galdos, so does Bochmann have a chance here? The pack are still 98 seconds down as they enter the final 10km
Bochmann is pushing hard now - his only chance is to hold off his 2 former companions, and also the chasing peloton - he is not known for his sprinting.
The pack are about to catch Galdos and Dviri with 3km to go - the Vaitkus group already having been caught, but Bochmann is still ahead, and the sprinters are struggling to be well positioned. The train is led by Vanderaerden, with Forero, Ciolek, Kennaugh, Croket and Sutton - but are leaving themselves a mammoth task
Bochmann enters the final kilometre
Dviri and Galdos have been swallowed up, but with the favoured sprinters still struggling to get back to the front, it is Arashiro taking things up
Lasse Bochmann is surely safe now though - a quick look behind
And victory is his! A shock win for the Danish rider and his team
Yukiya Arashiro continues his fine season so far with a 2nd place, with teammate Jelloul 5th - Forero and Kennaugh having managed to come through for 3rd and 4th, with Ciolek only managing 8th, Croket 12th, and Ventoso an invisible and dissapointing 35th.
Of Bochmann's day long companions, although Galdos looked completely spent and was left by Dviri at the start of the sprint, the Spaniard was able to salvage 17th - with Dviri behind him in 22nd.
