Next NC up: Eritrea! 11 riders, most of them (9) riding for local team Jaguar-Eritel, will go for glory on both a hilly circuit around Keren and a flat timetrial.
Jaguar with two seperated squads (led by Teklit/Amanuel and Teklehaimanot) and the pressure to deliver. Lonely contender will be Russom (Pendleton's), while Abraha (PFG) may only try to go for a breakaway success..
And Abraha at least made it into the 2-men-breakaway, that is allowed to go for it's try. Afewerki (out of "Teklit's" Jaguar group) as the other rider, giving his teammates from the other group a hard time..
We're jumping straight into the last 20km of this race and it's still a question, wether the bunch behind did enough to give the top-favorites a chance to go for the win:
Teklehaimanot and Russom though do think so and attack the bunch now, facing a 5'50"-gap on the two escapees.. too late? Right in time?
Right in time! The two favorites catch up to the leading duo quickly, 10km before finish, to be exact.
Jaguar's "first" squad with Teklit and also Amanuel did see that coming: supported by Dawit, the two ain't too far behind the new leading group - 1'29" and still in contention.
They also manage to catch up to the leading group, which consists of 6 riders with now just 1.5km to go:
Russom
Afewerki (who gave it a late, empty-handed try)
Abraha
Teklehaimanot
Teklit
Amanuel
with Russom now kicking off the bunch sprint!
He establishes a small gap on Teklehaimanot, who looks like the only remaining contender with less than a kilometre to go! Will he fight back?
No! Meron Russom holds on to his lead and takes out the Eritrean Road Race ahead of three Jaguar-riders! Definitely not what the local team was hoping for, but Russom played his cards well after taking advantage of Jaguar chasing down the breakaway.
The flat timetrial should see the Top-2 of the road race battling for the TT-honours as well: Teklehaimanot and Russom are rated as the strongest here.
An early notable BT is set by Jaguar's Awit Gebremedhin though. And as we're taking a look at the split time, he actually looks like a (surprising) contender!
He finds himself only 7" behind top-favorite Teklehaimanot, who also may fear road-winner Russom gaining back his 5" in the second 20km of the race.. a close one!
Russom is next in line to cross.. the line: and either he did extraordinary well in the second half or Gebremedhin put too much effort into his first half of the race, but..
..anyway, Russom easily sets a new BT by 22" on Gebremedhin, who was just two seconds behind at the split!
Jaguar with high hopes on it's timetrial-ace... will he do better than his teammate(s) and secure the team at least this one home-title?
He does! Teklehaimanot gains another three seconds on Russom and gets his revenge for the runner-up in the road race!
Eritrea! 11 riders, most of them (9) riding for local team Jaguar-Eritel, will go for glory on both a hilly circuit around Keren and a flat timetrial.
