Today is a busy day in the world of cycling, later today you can watch the best climbers of the world during the ProTour classic GP Liechtenstein. Or if you enjoy sprinting more, you can go watch the GP Plouay instead (former ProTour, nowadays a one day classic in the European Continental Circuit). But thanks to the time difference we start this day with the early morning broadcast of the Grand Prix in Tokyo, Japan!
Let's first have a look at the main favourites for today: Aleksandr Serebriakov, Damion Drapac (3rd last year) and Juan Pablo Forero.
Behind these main favorites there are a lot of other good sprinters here in Japan like Tyler Farrar, Michael Matthews, Michael Vanderaerden, Azizulhasni Awang, Mattias Westling, Armindo Fonseca. Last year's winner Jíri Hochmann is also here, but weather he may try to defend his title is uncertain, Aleksandr Serebriakov might need him for his sprint train.
The finish is a little bit downhill and has a light left turn just before the finish line, so positioning/riding on the left side might be the key for victory.
Now let's go the live coverage of the race, 132 riders are about the start the GP Tokyo, 30 degrees and sunny, the organization actually moved the start a little bit, so the riders could enjoy the shade as long as possible, a loud Japanese gong sound: Here we go!
After 3km of neutral section, the race director waved his flag and right from the start numerous attacks occurred. The first riders to attack were Po Hung Wu and Ignacio Sarabia, and a few seconds later also Raphael Addy joined them to make it a trio.
The breakaway build up a 40 seconds gap and when exiting the city Mark Galedo jumped away from the peloton as well.
With the peloton not chasing Armands Becis and Anton Cooper decided to use the first hill of the day to make it across the break away. On the highest point of the race all 6 riders came together and so the break of the day was a fact. E1 (6) -> 5'05" <- P (126)
During the descent the peloton was still taking it really easy, 5 riders of 5 different teams were keeping the pace just around 38 km/h. E1 (6) -> 6'27" <- P (126)
First time crossing the finish line and the sprinters are using it to get familiar with the last 3km of the circuit, because of this the gap to the breakaway is still growning; E1 (6) -> 8'40" <- P (126)
After exiting the city for the second time the peloton finally starts to chase down the breakaway, especially Jan Barta, Yohann Gene and Sergei Lagutin take long turns ahead of the peloton. E1 (6) -> 6'50" <- P (126)
The 6 riders upfront are trying to keep the pace high and although they are working good together, the peloton is going faster. When they reached the start of the local circuit (5x24km) the gap already is melting away fast: E1 (6) -> 5'39" <- P (126)
The first 3 rounds on the circuit was all about closing down on the breakaway, and when the gap was below 2 minutes Jean-Lou Paiani placed a strong surprise attack on the short hill.
The original 6 breakaway riders were quite surprised to see one man coming from behind this late in the race and started accelerating again so Jean-Lou Paiani wouldn't join them.
Jean-Lou Paiani eventually would fall back into the peloton, were Jan Barta, Yohann Gene and Sergei Lagutin still were doing most of the work. E1 (6) -> 1'00" <- P (126)
On the last hill everything would come back together again, except Giacomo Scarponi was soloing behind the peloton (puncture). Armands Becis and Po Hung Wu were the first to get caught by the peloton, Mark Galedo, Anton Cooper, Ignacio Sarabia and Raphael Addy followed a 1km later.
All the way back in the peloton a crash! Dominique Mayho, Johim Ariesen, Romain Guillemois and Muhamma Afif Ahmad Zamri all on the ground. Lucky for them, they were riding slow in a this corner, so everybody could continue the race on the bike.
On top of the last hill of the race most sprinters suddenly only had one or two helpers left, we were entering the 250+km zone now, David Vitoria looked around, received a extra water bottle from a teammate and sneaked away under the 10km banner.
Thanks to the downhill part he created a gap of 30 seconds to the peloton, 5 more kilometres to go, and only two teams organized enough to chase him (Carlsberg and Meiji).
3km to go and David Vitoria still has 35 seconds on the peloton! Most sprinters are on their own now and are gambling on Meiji (Itami/Nateghi/Modolo) to close the gap.
David Vitoria keeps on going, nothing to loose now! Behind him three unorganized sprint trains:
Van Wyk
Kragh Andersen
Nateghi
Hansen
Modolo
Vanderaerden
Matthews
Østergaard
Farrar
Chavanel
Itami
Awang
Matteau
Drapac
Petrie-Armstrong
Stoltz
Roulston
Fonseca
Harrison
700 metres to the finish line for David Vitoria, the sprinters behind him are closing in, does anyone has the legs to give it one last push?
Michael Vanderaerden can't wait any longer and goes first.
Meanwhile David Vitoria already is preparing himself for the finish photo, is he pushing his luck by doing so?
Michael Vanderaerden, Tyler Farrar and Sascha Modolo have a small gap to the rest of the peloton, but are they fighting for victory or 2nd place?
They are fighting for 2nd place! David Vitoria wins GP Tokyo with an amazing solo of almost 10km, big win for Maloja Mountain Nomads!
Behind him Tyler Farrar is getting in front of Michael Vanderaerden who started the peloton sprint.
Tyler Farrar (2nd), Sascha Modolo (3rd), he was just a little bit faster in the end than Michael Vanderaerden (4th)
Michael Matthews (5th) Damion Drapac (6th) and Armindo Fonseca (7th) are best of the rest.
While Azizulhasni Awang (8th), Cyril Lemoine (9th) and Adam Petrie-Armstrong conclude the top 10.
Last year's winner Jíri Hochmann (56th) and Aleksandr Khatuntsev (53th) are looking both disappointed and mad. They worked all day for their leader Aleksandr Serebriakov (24th) but apparently the hills were to hard for him.
Your 2014 GP Tokyo winner: David Vitoria of Maloja Mountain Nomads!
Kenji Itami (34th) finished as best Japenese rider, he did a great job protected Modolo all day, so he certainly will receive some sake tonight from his Italian friend in the karaokebar! Hope you all enjoyed the race and hopefully we will see you next year: さようなら!
