These three are joined by
Franklin Chacon
Owen Fabbro
and
Maxime Debusschere
With 75km to go the pack have their lead pegged at around five minutes and with the gap falling the sprint results become academic. The second is taken by Kostjuk ahead of Debausschere and Holt with Chacon landing the third ahead of Holt and Jerome.
But Alstom and Delhaize with the help of Gazprom comfortably lead back the chase.
however the Indonesian sprinter is struggling to follow the wheels and is thus taking his followers
Joaquin Sobrino
and
Mike Friedman
out of the running.
So as the Gazprom train fades along come the Alstom boys who are dragging
Saïd Haddou
forward.
So it becomes a battle between the Alstom and Samsung Mol trains with Ilesic and Gerard dragged along for the ride. Still this is fairly early on at 2km out.
Awang decides to stay patient here having perhaps learned some lessons from the recent San Juan race, Haddou meanwhile surges forward with Ilesic as Gomes Colines and the previously unseen
Tigran Korkotyan
coming into view.
Ilesic continues to put pressure on Haddou who cannot seem to get another gear, the Frenchman seems to have launched too soon. With 900m left Awang finally leaves his lead out and is moving the fastest but surely this is too late.
But boy is he coming quickly as we enter the last 400m he is closing fast on the now leading Ilesic.
Up the inside Awang goes.
He takes the win with an incredible late burst of speed, Ilesic looks stunned in second, Haddou shakes his head Alstom looked like they had timed the sprint well but they hadn't! Gerard is fourth, Korkotyan 5th and Gomes Colinas is 6th.
No problems today for Wagemans whose Delhaize team were up to the task of controlling the race.