The U23 Road Race is next up here in Hamilton. The B Worlds, won by Argentinian sprinter Richeze, may be an indicator of what to expect today - a bunch sprint.
Germany's Zabel/Krieger, Czech Republic's Vesely or France's Coquard should be considered the favorites, but we do have other fast men like Hayakawa, Grosu or Ewan.
Kvist's effort in the B Worlds of course showed, that there's a chance for fooling the peloton though. And we do remember Avenir, where Zabel did miss out on a stage-win thanks to breakaways!
Morton was the first to kick off the action right from the start!
The Aussie is accompanied by Schir (SUI), Jean (CAN), Orlov (UKR) and Eyob (ERI)..
Many more riders joined this very early action and it's kinda surprising to see this first attacks already resulting in today's first breakaway! A group of 11 riders was soon grown to 13 and this group establishes a 2-minutes-gap just ten kilometre into the race:
The group's gap peaks at 7 minutes with still 170km remaining. The peloton now goes for a higher pace, showing interest to keep it's disadvantage at this level.
Germany and Czech Republic sharing this early work now..
115km to go and still Czech Republic and Germany pulling the bunch. Vesely and Zabel with a clear mission, obviously.
4'32" disadvantage on the early break..
48km remaining..
1'54" disadvantage..
We see the next attack out of the peloton, as Manfred (Africa) tries to solo away!
Empty-handed attempt though and the African is reeled in by the chasing bunch soon. Opposing to the still leading break of the day:
27km to go and the peloton is 1'13" in arrears with still the same teams working at the front!
We're already in the final lap (14km remaining) and the break's gap is down to 50" in the meantime.
Next rider trying to go for a late attack:
Wohler (AUS)!
The Aussie struggles to bridge across the breakaway though and so he's in between the 13-men-group (27 seconds ahead) and the peloton (9 seconds down) with now just 7km to go!
Germany now on it's own, as the Czech team seems to struggle after 100km of workload! Denmark with some minor support for the Germans:
38" advantage for the early escapees.. enough to hold off the soon to be built sprint trains?
Morton now pulling the breakaway group into the final 4km.. and wohooo, the group's advantage is back to 56" in the meantime!
Does the German team suffer from it's efforts, too?
Well, at least the peloton couldn't really narrow the gap back to those 30 seconds! The escaping group enters the final 3km with a notable gap, as the two expected teams set up the trains for the bunch sprint:
CZE-train: Vakoc/Cerny/Vesely, Grosu, Hayakawa, Yates, Coutinho, De Bie, Enger
Seibeb (Africa) and Olivier (NED) tried to attack, but couldn't escape..
But is it too late to catch the early break? The gap looks comfortable...
Morton, Eyob, Jean and Frison kick off the sprint in the leading group!
The group's advantage still looks promising and the fans at the finish go crazy now:
local hero Jean goes past Morton and Eyob for the leading position with about a kilometre to go!
Frison trying to hang on and Kulimbetov is moving forward from behind, too!
The Kazakh with an incredible acceleration to take the lead! Frison dropped Jean easily: the Canadian clearly went all or nothing here and suffers big time now!
Also Morton is fading, while Manfredi leads the rest of the breakaway..
..you may notice the peloton approaching the kite..
..too far behind to challenge for the victory! Krieger/Zabel leading the bunch, with Lutsenko and Vesely trying to hang on.
Will Zabel experience his Avenir-story here once again?
Back to the very front though:
Frison counters the Kazakh with a strong acceleration!
Manfredi/Terasaki/Mullen likely to battle for the podium only..
Yap, cause Gold goes to Belgium and Frison! A well timed sprint and a huge victory of course. Congratulations!
Kulimbetov suffered in the end, but lungs in for a strong 2nd place..
Italy can celebrate an unexpected Bronze medal, as Manfredi outsprints Terasaki and Mullen to complete the podium. Morton 6th ahead of Orlov and also all other early escapees managed to finish ahead of the now nearing bunch!
History repeats indeed, as Zabel is back in Avenir-mode to win the bunch sprint for an useless 14th place today!
In the end, just two teams (CZE, GER) working hard in the chase surely wasn't enough to catch back the escapees right in time. Who knows, what had happened, if a team like France had shown some more support here?!
Frederik Frison obviously won't care about this question(s) and celebrates his maybe career-defining victory!
Frederik Frison
Nurbolat Kulimbetov
Andrea Manfredi
