The Japanese champs will be decided on a fairly lumpy parcours. The circuit race includes two serious climbs, both with passably steep sections.
It's all Meiji today, so at least it wont be hard to predict what team the winner will come from! Will be interesting to see how they plan out this race, knowing that they're racing each other.
Tomohiro Hayakawa and Junpei Murakami are found in an earlish breakaway after a little less than half the race done. They're not getting any major advantage tho, since their other team mates seem to be interested in the title as well.
A mid-race bid for glory is made a little while later, when Fumiyuki Beppu, Masaki Kikuchi, Hiroyuki Fukata and defending champ Yukiya Arashiro form a four-man chasing group.
Murakami does not seem to want more company at the front of the race and enhances the pace in the leading group once he realizes that four others are upcoming. Hayakawa can't take the new speed and drops.
It soon becomes obvious that Murakami was holding back a lot in reserve earlier, as he quickly starts to extend his lead. Entering the final thirty ks of racing, he leads former companion Hayakawa by 3'45 and a fading Arashiro group by 4'10!
Arashiro starts to get desperate and leaves everyone but Fukata behind, also passing by a tired Hayakawa. However, the gap just wont come down!
Also Fukata has to let go of the rampaging reigning champ soon, but Murakami just wont give in. As the finish comes closer, it's clear that he's a number too large for everyone else, as the gap goes up to five minutes!
After an amazing fifty-kilometer solo run, Murakami celebrates conquest! He'll wear the red and white Japanese jersey during the whole 2013 season.
A tired and disappointed Arashiro rolls home in second, over five minutes later. He simply didn't have the legs to match his incredibly strong team mate.
The next group comes in another four minutes down. After sleeping for most of the race, Junya Sano and Yukihiro Doi woke up on the two last laps and just about caught this group in time to both make the Top 5.
In the time trial, it's a duel between two riders.
Junya Sano is the best early starter, surprisingly beating one of the two pre-race favourites, Ryota Nishizono, by almost half a minute.
Sano actually successfully pulls it off! Not even defending champion and today's main favourite, Beppu, is able to match him. It's very close, but in the end, the two are separated by five seconds.
