Welcome to the Rund um Köln, the second sprinters one day race of the PT calendar. Although many puncheurs have come to Germany to challenge the fastmen, surely the likes of
Tom Boonen Daniele Bennati Sam Bewley Ben Swift
are still the biggest favourites.
The first rider to try his luck is Markus Fahnert. He quickly opens a 1 minute gap, but it's quite unlikely that he'll be alone in the breakaway of the day.
It's not until his gap has grown beyond the 2'30'' mark that other three riders go on the attack. They are Panagiotis Vlatos, Cesare Di Maggio and Nathan Haas. Especially surprising to see Di Maggio attacking from so far out, but possibly he doesn't fancy his chances in a head to head fight with the flat run in.
The peloton really isn't interested in chasing down the attackers, so they easily bridge the gap to Fahnert. By the time they link up, they have a 3'44'' gap.
As the gap maxes out at 8'15'' with 125km to go, Vesuvio - Accumalux, Pokerstars.com and Team Puma - SAP decide it's time to work, so they start sending men to the front to start the chase.
With 80km to go, the gap has gone down to 5'16''. The breakaway is about to start the last hilly part of the race, so last chance to put some pain on the pure sprinters' legs.
And we have our first DNF, Kiril Yatsevich fell and won't be able to finish the race. Bad luck for the young Russian TT specialist.
50km to go, and the hills are pretty much over. As expected, nothing happened beyond the fact that the gap kept decreasing, and it's now just 3'21''. All points towards a mass sprint for today.
And Simone Ponzi attacks! With 35km to go, he knows he doesn't stand a chance in the mass sprint and tries to link up with the breakaway, brave move by the Italian.
25km to go, and the gap for the front groupis just 1'05''. As they see Ponzi get closer, it's Haas who tries a solo move, with Di Maggio and Fahnert trying to follow.
However, once Ponzi catches them, all four sit up, and are rapidly swallowed by the peloton. Only Haas is up the road, with 59'' with 22km to go.
Once the four got caught, the peloton dramatically slowed down, making Haas' gap to grow up to 1'40''. Some riders didn't like that, so now we have
Mikhail Ignatiev Thomas De Gendt Jack Bauer Filippo Pozzato Alessandro Ballan
attacking. Very strong chase group here, surely Puma and Pokerstars should be worried.
But they never quite got a gap thanks to Puma's work, so they only shortened the life of Haas' attempt. Gruppo compatto now with 14km to go.
And Ballan goes again with 7km to go. He's joined by Ignatiev, Kruijswijk, Pozzato and Ponzi!
But there's nothing to do against the almighty Puma train. 5km to go, and bunch packed again.
4km to go, and only the Puma train is being set up, with Romain Vanderbiest trying to follow. Behind, a mix of puncheurs, rouleurs and sprinters try to find the right wheel to follow.
3km to go, and a great line of sprinters have formed behind the Puma train, the order is
1500m to go and Guerao tries to come past Goss and Bennati. Likewise, Crocket is launching Boonen from the right hand side.
Last kilometer, and Guerao leads followed by Goss, but Crocket and Boonen come fast as well. Bennati and Vanderbiest could pay a lot for following Kvist for too long.
Bennati and Vanderbiest finally go with 800m to go, but Guerao, Goss and boonen have a good advantage by now.
Boonen is just so much faster! He takes the lead, and only Bennati seems to be nearly as fast - but he's way behind!
No opposition for Boonen and Bennati for 1-2, they are a class above. Now Bewley and Swift come really fast, but they started in a ridiculously bad position, as did Haussler.
Way too easy for Tom Boonen. The Belgian wins the sprint by both having the best timing and the fastest sprint. Really impressive. Daniele Bennati easily takes second, he could have been closer to Boonen had he started before his sprint, but surely beating the Belgian would have been impossible.
And it's Michael Van Stayen who takes the last podium spot from Sam Bewley. The Kiwi did a great sprint coming from way behind, but the Belgian took advantage from his better positioning. Ben Swift is another rider who came from behind to more or less save the race with a decent 5th place. PCT wildcard Heinrich Haussler also did a good sprint, gaining many places to end in a quite good 6th place in his home race.
On the contrary, Óscar Guerao (7th), Matthew Goss (8th), Romain Vanderbiest (9th) and Lars Crocket (10th) started in a good position the sprint, but faded away from a potentioal top 5 placing, and have to settle for a low top 10.
Full Results:
1
Tom Boonen
Pokerstars.com
5h16'09
2
Daniele Bennati
Team Puma - SAP
s.t.
3
Michael Van Stayen
Simply Red Bull
s.t.
4
Sam Bewley
Milka - AVG
s.t.
5
Ben Swift
Vesuvio - Accumalux
s.t.
6
Heinrich Haussler
Sram-Riboxx Cycling Team
s.t.
7
Óscar Guerao
Festina-Canal+
s.t.
8
Matthew Goss
Wikipedia
s.t.
9
Romain Vanderbiest
Pearl Adidas
s.t.
10
Lars Croket
Lotto - Cervelo
s.t.
11
Wes Sulzberger
Simply Red Bull
s.t.
12
Filippo Pozzato
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
s.t.
13
Philippe Gilbert
Pendleton's
s.t.
14
Maximiliano Richeze
UBS - BMC
s.t.
15
Jack Bauer
Heineken presented by California Giant Berry Farms
