Sweden's NC is proudly presented by Swedbank - this year, the managers voted for a mountainous route in the road race!
Lövkvist (Swedbank) as the clear favorite for the road race and of course it's all up to his team to decide over the race. With two squads (6/5 riders each), the Swedish team can play several cards.
Kessiakoff (Simply) will heavily rely on Swedbank's tactics, but can be a threat in the both the road race and the timetrial.
The first attack may already be the crucial in terms of the actual race:
Ludvigsson (member of the Lövkvist-squad) goes early and opens up a notable gap quickly!
Three more riders tried to follow, but as much worse climbers than Ludvigsson, they all struggle to join him:
Wengelin, Dahlberg as a 2-men-chasing group and Bertilsson in between them and the bunch.. the latter sitting up, unfortunatelly..
..and so it's an easy victory for Ludvigsson, who eventually gained more than 6 minutes on today's runner-up Wengelin! Swedbank apparently played the "save" breakaway card then - sending a decent climber onto the first move clearly paid off with the NC shirt secured.
The 48km flat timetrial promises a closer race, as there's no truly outstanding rider against the clock:
defending champion Lindgren (Risa) will fancy his chances again, while Johansson (Swedbank) should be considered the favorite. His temmates Wetterhall or Lövkvist can be threats as well, and also Renäng (Live Nation) is amongst the promising TT-specialists here!
Wetterhall has an early start (as second on the road) and his time will be the first indicator for sure:
52'35"
Lövkvist is the next contender crossing the line and we notice worse conditions (30kmh crosswinds) now! Will this be a factor today?
+ 48" for Lövkvist at the finish..
Defending champion Lindgren is one of the last on the road and opposing to Wetterhall (something like 10kmh), those late starters all have worse conditions indeed (still 30kmh crosswinds)!
Lindgren is already down by 1'19" at the half-time split..
..and..
+ 1'34" at the finish! Quite a margin..
Also Renäng seems to struggle and it's getting more and more clear, that Wetterhall will benefit from the weather conditions:
+ 1'20" at the finish and therefore provisional 3rd behind Lövkvist!
That ain't too promising news for top-favorite Johansson, who may again miss out on the TT-title..
Split #1: + 51" on Wetterhall..
Split #2: + 42" and slightly improving..
Finish: + 34" on his teammate and another runner-up after last year's 2nd!
Quite some bad luck for those late starters, but Swedbank won't care too much with three riders on the podium. Renäng as 4th and Lindgren as 5th though.. better luck next year!
Sweden's NC is proudly presented by Swedbank - this year, the managers voted for a mountainous route in the road race!
