Welcome to 2012! Welcome to South Africa! The season starts here!
And we start with a new team. Aker Solutions - Bergans. Their rider Ole Hirschlein is the first to attack.
He forms our first breakaway, a group of 7 riders: Hirschlein Le Gac Zirbel Rutkiewicz Preidler Roulston Van Keirsbulck
First puncture of the year! Benjamin Noval
Portela and Vink bridge the gap to the breakaway, followed soon after by Genki Yamamoto
Lavery, Le Bon and Aru make it a break of 13.
First crashes of the year! They happen at the same time, but are separate incidents. Meiji's Miyazawa is one, Venchi's Sagan the other.
And here is the breakaway. 75km to go, 3 minutes lead
Not put off by the gap, Ghyllebert now attacks and makes it across. 14.
Vespa are controlling the pace behind. The gap is steady at 3 minutes.
Skipping to 35km to go now - Aleksandar Flugel attacks, almost unnoticed!
A bad time for Bauke Mollema to crash then!
Kolobnev and Monfort bridge across to Flugel, as they pass Hirschlein and Yamamoto, who have been dropped by the breakaway. Bellis now attacks aswell, and he goes straight past the others
Vanendert, Claeys, Sanchez, Froome and Augustyn all also seem to think attacking is the thing to do right now, off they go
But it's all come back together! The attackers catch the break, and the peloton catch them all
Not for long! Flugel attacks over the top. Augustyn leans into the descent in pursuit. Pineau, Kolobnev, Sanchez and Vanendert also
Conveniently for Flugel, they now catch and lap his teammates Li and Predatsch, plus crash victim Miyazawa. Some brief support for the German before he presses on again
Only Sanchez gets across, while as we start the penultimate lap, Roux, Bellis, Pineau and Claeys also attack. Its all for nothing as a resolute chase from Vespa brings it back together once again. A calm Ginanni still yet to show his hand.
So, 14km to go, and we are back in one group. 41 riders left. Bono, Quinziato, Bosisio, Arndt, Ginanni Flugel, Preidler Roux, Rovira Le Gac Sanchez, Ghyllebert Rutkiewicz, Augustyn Roulston, Voeckler, Pineau Van Keirsbulck, Vanendert, Vansumeren, Gautier Jelloul, Vorganov, Gerrans, Kirchen, Impey, Mori, Cherel Portela Vink Bellis, Froome, Dowsett, Appleby Aru Wyss, Lavery Kolobnev Claeys, Monfort, Rooijackers
But Flugel just wants to attack! Off he goes again
Bellis follows, and this time, so does Ginanni!
Bellis fades away, so Flugel and Ginanni lead into the final lap. Monfort is coming across the gap - and a group of 20 or so are soon after that
Not happy at just that, Monfort presses on solo
Teammate Claeys joins him, but so does Vanendert!
Soon this is back together as well though - Flugel closing it down with help from his teammate from the break, Preidler.
With 3km to go, Vanendert leads round the tight turn. A descent, uphill and final slight descent to the finish awaits. Up there are Claeys, Flugel, Monfort, Wyss, Froome, Roux, Augustyn and Dowsett
With Ginanni on Dowsett's wheel
Holding in there from the breakaway is Portela, but he is leaving a small gap! Pineau, Mori, Bellis and Gerrans are next.
Sanchez, Rovira, Kolobnev and Gautier are after that. Too far back?
Vanendert launches the sprint! Bianchi are well placed
We're catching a group of lapped riders as Vanendert leads the charge uphill. Bianchi's still poised on his wheel, Cherel and Roux too. But look in the middle! Dowsett, Ginanni, Froome and Bellis are just riding along, not sprinting at all!
1km to go! Vanendert leads but has Claeys on his wheel. Monfort is to the left as we see it, Flugel, Wyss and Pineau following with Sanchez to the side of Pineau. Roux, Augustyn, and Cherel are more to the right as we see it. Behind them is Mori and Gerrans and then Ginanni and the Rapha. Are they now starting to sprint?
They take the turn and Claeys jumps out past Vanendert
But look at this! Dowsett leads the charge through and Ginanni now makes his move past him. Theyve gone from nowhere to right up there! Thats Froome following Ginanni
Crash! Dale Appleby is down. He was in this group, but not really contesting the sprint
Ginanni is going quick, but Claeys leads over the line! Its not the finish line though! Still another 400m to go for some reason
As Ginanni looks to go around the outside of Claeys, we can see that Gautier has also made a charge through but now must hold off Bellis who is on his wheel. Roux, Flugel, Kolobnev and Monfort are struggling to respond
Ginanni is edging past Claeys, but Froome is the fastest of all!
Francesco Ginanni wins the MTN Cycling Classic! Claeys holds on to 2nd, Froome was a few metres too late and must settle for 3rd
Gautier holds on for a great 4th, ahead of British duo Bellis and Dowsett. Flugel, Kolobnev, Rovira and Pineau round out the Top 10.
John-lee Augustyn is top South African in 12th, while Monfort and Vanendert faded in the last kilometre to 14th and 18th - and Samuel Sanchez barely featured in taking 17th.
