July 2011 will be remembered as Slovenia's finest cycling hour as Simon Spilak won the Tour de France. The Warner Brothers rider is not here though to defend his national championships and this opens it up for Janez Brajkovic (Domina Vacanze), who will be big favourite today.
The parcours are pretty tough with the finish at the top of a climb:
All eyes are on Brajkovic with Valjavec and Bozic marking him closely as things split up early on.
However these three have allowed another three riders to get away, Milka duo Jarc and Bajc have taken advantage along with Bacardi's minor sprinter Juri Kocjan.
With 50km to go the lead three have eight minutes, Brajkovic is looking frustrated as Bozic and Valjavec refuse to help him lift the pace. The Milka men up front are doing most of the work and they will be happy as it becomes clear that no-one will catch them. They have to figure out how to beat Kocjan a very good sprinter and not too shabby going uphill either.
Bajc is the sacrificial lamb here as he does most of the work in the last 15 km as the gradient rises Jarc hits the front with Kocjan in close order.
Jarc has clearly saved something as Kocjan is struggling to get around the Milka rider and as they thunder down the home straight we have a really tight one.
It looked for all money that Jarc was going to hold Kocjan off, but he Bacardi man perhaps hoping for a contract for next year gives it that last little acceleration to move level.
He just about nudges this and takes his national title.
Trying to get a better picture of the sprint the game crashed on the replay so I just have a top six for you, sorry!
Without the RR tactic to hamper him Brajkovic should comfortably defend his TT championships of Slovenia. His biggest threats today are the Lipton duo Gazvoda and Zrimsek who didn't feature at all in the RR coming home way back there.
Gazvodo then sets the best time of these two, but there would be no miracles as Brajkovic easily trumps the two Lipton riders.
The Chronos tell the story...
So after the disappointment of the road race Brajkovic makes amends in the TT.
