Welcome to the biggest sprinter’s classic on the CT calendar. The cream of sprinting talent is out for today and the most obvious favourite is Daniele Bennati, who has already racked up four sprint classics this season. Thought that must seem paltry compared to his Tour de France green jersey from last year. Will anyone be able to stop the maestro mid-song? The race is 184km in length and finishes on 6 laps of a 10.7km circuit, and it is essentially flat the entire way.
The first man to put in an attack to light up today’s 184km race is Alexander Gottfried. This is a clever move by WWE who will not want to do a lot of chasing today as they haven’t brought as strong a team as some of the others and will want to save all their firepower to set up Greipel.
Behind him follow: Alex Kirsch Rohan Dennis Bjorn Selander Patrick Bercz
As expected Hollister have gone on the attack, not having a lead sprinter here.
After they join up two more riders bridge. They are Florian Scheit and Carlos Manarelli
This is a great move by Rothaus, who bring one of the pre-race favourites in Vantomme. However, as Masaaki Kikuchi and Wen Hao Li bridge up, the peleton starts to get nervous about the make-up of the group with the presence of the Rothaus rider being particularly distressing. The pace is lifted by Tinkoff, Puma, UniCredit and, rather surprisingly, Cyclevox. They bring it back in short order but straight away a new attack goes. This time it is:
Wen Hao Li Alexander Gottfried Rohan Dennis Masaaki Kikuchi Mark Renshaw
In twos and threes quite a few more riders decide to try their hand in today’s break. With a finishing circuit that is rather tight, crashes are a distinct possibility which could make being in the break a decisive move. The riders coming up are: Mattias Westling Carlos Manarelli Chris Opie Peter Williams Aleksandr Khatuntsev Justo Mayo Alessio Signego Oscar Gatto
What are Vespa playing at here? Gatto isn’t the best sprinter in the field but he could surely fight for a top 10? Then again, if the break walks away with it Gatto would be a favourite out of these riders. Putting Signego on the attack was a great move by UniCredit too. Their team here has a lot of depth and so they can afford to sacrifice one lead-out man in order to avoid riding on the front.
These 13 riders start to disappear away from the group, so a few more riders try to bridge. They are: Jens Keukeliere Bjorn Selander Patrick Bercz Panagiotis Vlatos Florian Scheit Tom Slagter
This makes a total of 19 riders up front, which is obviously far too many. Once again teams get on the front, chiefly Puma and Hollister, both of whom want a smaller breakaway, but for different reasons. They bring everything back together and once again a new wave of attacks begins. The riders initiating it this time are:
Tom Slagter Patrick Bercz Alexander Gottfried
Fairly quickly four more riders come across. They are: Wen Hao Li Alex Kirsch Kevin Pauwels Bjorn Selander
None of these riders are particularly dangerous and the three biggest teams here haven’t sent anyone up yet. A few more riders come across the gap. They are:
Carlos Manarelli Ahmad Haidar Anuawar Bruno Santos
Santos is Cerne’s leader so this is an odd move but you get the impression that some of the lesser favourites like Santos and Gatto might be thinking that the only way to beat Bennati is to attack him. You have to appreciate what they are doing to fight for the win instead of second place.
The attacks calm and only two more riders seek to join the break. They are Ho-Ting Kwok and Tom Stamsnijder, who make it up to the lead group with 105km remaining. The break of the day has been completely formed. Things are not totally fine up front though, with several of the riders happy to just take a ride and mark the others for a while.
Thanks to this, the maximum gap is 4’40”, with Puma and UniCredit working well together to keep everything under control but not pushing the pace too hard. This pace setting continues across the first two laps of the 10.7km circuit. As the fourth lap begins, however, several teams come to the front. Puma, Tinkoff and Cyclevox are all working very well together and with the gap at 3’05” things are looking dire for the break.
The gap starts to come down, and so too does the rain! It isn’t pouring down but it is still enough to cause early aggressor Kikuchi to fall.
To the delight of the home fans Markus Eichler puts in an attack.
He is caught by Gianni Meersman, who is leading the peleton. The touchpaper has been lit though, and two more riders try their luck. Jack Bauer puts in an attack ahead of Romain Feillu. Feillu is known for these bizarre attacks and clearly he is another rider who thinks that the best way to deal with Bennati is to avoid having to fight him in a bunch sprint.
With 3 laps to go the situation is as follows:
1’22”
17”
1’39”
Break
--->
Bauer/Feillu
--->
Peleton
Bauer and Feillu are dragged in fairly quickly and the high pace in the peleton causes everything to be very strung out. Some outside bets for today are near the back, with Baden Cooke sitting too far back for comfort.
The high pace in the peleton makes it look like the break of the day is doomed. Not wanting to give up too easily, several of the front riders decide that they want to put in a bigger dig. The three riders who go away together are Haidar Anuawar, Bercz and Kirsch and they pull out an advantage of their breakaway companions.
With 2 laps remaining the situation has changed to the following:
36”
50”
1’26”
3 Leaders
--->
9 Chasers
--->
Peleton
The pace remains high through the second lap and the chasing group really doesn’t put in enough effort to fight against the peleton. As such with 12km remaining the chasers are dragged back in.
The gap is still coming down and so Bercz puts in a big attack and drops both of his breakaway companions. Trilux would love this win on home soil and Haussler probably isn’t good enough to provide it.
With the final lap starting Bercz has 25” on the charging peleton. The twisting roads are helping him, but he has been out front for well over 100km and it starts to tell in his legs. Finally, with 8km remaining he is dragged in by the charging peleton, led by Puma. The sprinters will have their day.
UniCredit and Puma fight for control of the front. Both have brought incredible lead-outs for their sprinters and their strength is showing. With 4.2km to go, as Lorenzetto peels off the front, there is a fight for Delage’s wheel, who is currently leading the bunch. On the left Gasparotto is setting up Bennati and on the right Borghesi is fighting to position Borrajo, who has Napolitano on his wheel. Mohs sits on Napolitano’s wheel while Vaitkus has moved up with Drujon and Ciolek.
700m later, 3.5km out it is clear that UniCredit have the better sprint train here and they have muscled Puma out of it. Bennati’s only remaining lead-out man is Gasparotto. Ciolek has moved up onto Bennati’s wheel and Van Hummel moves onto Ciolek’s wheel.
But wait, Gasparotto has a huge engine and he brings Bennati back up to the front! Vaitkus muscles Ciolek aside and moves onto Bennati’s wheel. The dual Czech Republic stage winner is in a great position. Drujon also elbows Ciolek out of the way and pulls himself up to Vaitkus. Ciolek has to content himself with getting onto Mohs and prays that UniCredit will unleash Borrajo soon.
Gasparotto continues to power ahead and finally Borghesi has no more to give. Borrajo comes to the front of the right sprint train and tries to pull Napolitano back equal with Bennati.
With 1800 metres to the line, Borrajo has kept the train strong but hasn’t been able to make any advance on Gasparotto. Behind, Vantomme has finally shown himself by getting onto Van Hummel’s wheel but he is probably too far back and on the wrong train.
With 1km left to go the line Bennati launches his attack! Gasparotto stays right up against the barriers so that he won’t interfere with the sprint. Vaitkus is still sitting on Bennati’s wheel. Ciolek and Van Hummel try to launch a long sprint to get around UniCredit’s train.
With 800m left to go Napolitano launches himself around the outside of Borrajo. Ciolek has almost drawn equal to him. Mohs and Van Hummel are both a bit boxed in behind.
With 300m to go it is the final bend, a 90 degree right hander. Bennati is still leading strongly at the front, but Ciolek and Napolitano have the inside lines. Vantomme starts to come up as well.
But who could contend with the master today? Bennati never looked like losing this one from the moment that he launched himself.
Vaitkus gets an incredible second place, which will please his team, who have been desperate for results of late. Drujon also holds on for third. It goes to show that sometimes all it takes is picking the right wheel.
Mohs puts in a strong final burst to edge out the other riders for fourth place as the best of the Germans. Van Hummel’s late move around the outside gets him fifth place, with Vantomme getting 6th place with his late turn of speed. Finally, Napolitano comes across in an immensely disappointing 7th place, just edging out Ciolek. Greipel puts in a strong effort for 9th and Meiji’s Park gets another top 10 sprint result by finishing tenth.
In 11th place is Vedel Kvist, who is celebrating a job done immensely well.
57 riders were dropped on the run-in, including Baden Cooke. He sprints out of frustration and leads his group home almost 2 minutes back.
