Ukrainian NCs - time for the Metinvest and Privatbank sponsored festival of cycling! A challenging, hilly rated, parcours in and around L'Viv awaits 24 riders from across Ukraine.
Metinvest (2 teams/11 riders) with the pressure to deliver either Popovych or Pakthusov a chance to grab the road title. The team missed out on a victory last year and will surely aim for at least one this time.
Privatbank (2 teams/7 riders) will try to repeat last year's road victory from Topchanyuk (when he rode for Aker).. other favorites will be Prevar (Red Bull), Grabovski (Bacardi) or Ratiy (Festina) - all completely on their own though.
leave the pressure all on Popovych's team, building a 3-minutes-gap soon!
A quiet race with Metinvest at least trying to control the race - though struggling to narrow the gap back to less then 2'30" with now just 7km remaining!
Anyway, a few favorites won't just give up and attack the bunch in this final lap:
Grabovski
Prevar
Popkov
About two minutes ahead, there's also finally some action in the break of the day - 4km to go now:
Buts and Vasyluk attack the leading group, while group Prevar/Grabovski is down by 1'40" at this point. Too late?
Defending road champion Topchanyuk is part of a second chasing group with also Ratiy, Pakthusov and Kononenko at his side. This group, however, is already 2'20" in arrears and most probably won't stand a chance to go for line honours..
..opposing to group Prevar/Popkov/Grabovski, which is taking benefit from the breakaway showing some tactical plays once Vasyluk/Buts got brought back from their earlier attempt:
1.5km remaining and after a few moments of shadowing each other, the group's advantage is down to 36" now!
Vasyluk on the move again though!
Prevar and Pokpov as those chasers still trying to close up with just the final kilometre ahead:
Buts is the one countering Vasyluk's attack - the latter struggling to keep his pace!
Yap, Vasyluk is done and also Averin won't be a threat, as it seems to come down to a battle between Buts and Polivoda:
the sprinter now accelerating to go past his teammate!
Prevar finally catching up to the leading group, but he sees Polivoda holding on to a small advantage..
..to complete a double for Privatbank: Polivoda takes line honours ahead of Buts and Averin! Prevar 7 seconds in arrears to finish as 4th ahead of Vasyluk/Popkov.. so no luck for Metinvest again.
The team definitely with quite some early pressure, as the breakaway surely was a tough one..
Road title/
Oleksandr Polivoda (Privatbank - Nemiroff Professional Cycling Team)
So Metinvest aiming for the ITT, which looks achievable, given that we have two clear favorites for this one:
defending champion Grabovski faces some heavy competition in up and coming star Zmorka this year. This promises a thrilling battle for glory..
Metinvest with a few early starts - some riders aiming for the podium at least. Veteran Popovych (runner-up last year) again getting the best out of those names, setting a long lasting best time at the finish..
Ratiy though is one of those late starters capable of performing on the very same level:
Festina's climber is 27" faster than Popovych at the half-time split! Quite a showing..
..but quite a gap on the new provisional best time at this split, too:
Zmorka crushes the earlier competition and is 47" faster than Ratiy at this point!
Grabovski with some pressure, but obviously not at his best today:
+ 24" on Zmorka!
Will the defending champion fight back in the second half of the race?
Ain't looking too promising, as Grabovski crosses the final split with a 37"-deficit on Zmorka...
..who simply dominated today: Ukraine's future of timetrialing grabs his TT-title already this year, beating Grabovski by 46" at the finish!
One of many to come? Well, he will be back even stronger next year.. Metinvest certainly happy to grab one NC-title this year.