Czech Republic's NC - kicked off with a tricky 188km parcours around Loket, featuring short climbs. A small startlist with one certain team feeling the pressure to deliver..
It's local team Milka-AVG, which has the strongest team in both numbers (7) and skills (Rabon, Kreuziger). With only 15 riders at the start, it's definitely up to them to fullfil the high expectations!
Sending a rider into a breakaway is one way to shake some pressure off and Milka even managed to get a quite decent domestique into a 4-men-group:
With Milka now refusing to chase, this group was always going to establish a ridicolous huge gap..
47 minutes with 18km remaining.. so it's a battle between those four:
Novak is the first to attack the group now, Hnik tries to follow immediately!
Only 2km later and no real gap established, Hnik launches a counter-attack with Novak jumping behind quickly this time!
A brave effort by Hnik, who can't follow Novak though: the allrounder established a 25"-gap in his former breakaway companions with now 6km remaining..
And he holds on til the finish to take the victory: Milka's tactics pay off with Jakub Novak securing the road title for the local team.
Vakoc and Hnik complete the podium with Hacecký finishing 4th.. and last. The whole Milka-team stopped racing to celebrate Novak's win at the finish and so did the remaining riders.
50km flat timetrial - only the best will "survive", this time.. Looking at the rider's ratings, we can hope for a close fight for the title, as two Kreuziger, Danacik and maybe Hacecký are similar strong TTers.
Hacecký (Kappa) though has to hope for a great daily form plus the two top-favorites to struggle a bit.. at least he delivers by taking the first notable BT.
But looking at the first split, now that all riders are in the second half of the race, it's basically over for Hacecký, who's 20" in arrears.
And what a close race we have ahead of him: Kreuziger and Danacik crossed the split with exactly the same time! We couldn't have asked for a more thrilling battle!
Jakub Danacik (Koenigsegg) with an impressive ride so far.. any small mistake though would cost either him or Kreuziger the well needed title..
Danacik - unsuprisingly - crosses the finish as the new leader, beating Hacecký by 38" to put the pressure on Kreuziger..
Roman Kreuziger (Milka) and his fight for seconds.. it's just watching him ride for another 35 minutes and see where both end up..
One second! It's just one second eventually.. and the second goes to... Danacik! Well, the second PLACE.. Kreuziger takes the TT-title with the smalles margin. Wow. So Milka takes the road/TT-double, which the team was hoping for.
Czech Republic's NC - kicked off with a tricky 188km parcours around Loket, featuring short climbs. A small startlist with one certain team feeling the pressure to deliver..
