The Russian Championships will be held in Voronezh, featuring a flat road race. Proudly presented by Tinkoff, will we see the sprinters deliver?
Defending road champion Firsanov is member of the strongest team (in numbers) here: Ameriabank lines up with 8 riders and Serebriakov as one of the favorites.
Tinkoff decided to split their roster into 5 squads: Trofimov, Krasnov, Trusov, Kolesnikov and Kritskiy as those teams' leaders.. Ignatiev (Metinvest) and Maksimov (Africa) have no support at their side..
Ameriabank goes for the break of the day, which may be bad news for the peloton's chances today:
try to bridge across the minutes-gap on the early breakaway!
Also Brutt (Tinkoff) tried to follow a few moments later, while 10km before finish, yet facing already a 1'30"-gap on those latest attackers, two strong men go as well:
Gusev (Pendle)
Ignatiev (Metinvest)
With 10km remaining and those two already down by 2'00" on the early break, this may be too late though..
The race settles down then and it's a pretty weird situation now. Group Kritskiy/Kolobnev/Brutt looked set to catch up to the leading group, but once Efimkin attacked to bridge across the breakaway quickly, the chasing group(s) slow down for no reason.
Efimkin though joins the early break 9km before finish, trying to keep the pressure up!
But also he ain't looking too straight forward and didn't push any further. This 6-men-group then kept shadowing each other til the final 3km:
Yatsevich now attacking and it's pretty clear, that group Kritskiy/Brutt/Ignatiev (who caught up in the meantime) won't stand a chance anymore: 1'50" in arrears thanks to them slowing down for a few minutes!
Novikov counters Yatsevich as we reach the final km! Efimkin though surprisingly in trouble to hang on..
..and so Tinkoff celebrates the road victory with Novikov beating Yatsevich quite easily! Sulimov 3rd, while Efimkin finishes 6th and last in this group!
Ignatiev comes in 7th a minte later and was the only one in the chasing group to hold off the bunch. The others - like Kritskiy - didn't really show anymore efforts eventually..
A kinda disappointing outcome, since the big guns/roleurs/superstars made for some action-packed racing until the final 10km, when they more or less gave up for no obvious reasons.
Efimkin didn't give up, joined the early break - but then disappeared and totally failed in the crucial moments. Weird stuff, but Tinkoff got the shirt they were aiming for!
Up for the ITT now: Ignatiev as the favorite and with the clear mission to bounce back from last year's runner-up behind Trofimov (and a rather disappointing WC's timetrial)! The panflat parcours may favor him this time.
Kovalev (Volkswagen), Yatsevich (Bacardi) and Kritskiy (Tinkoff) as his biggest rivals, while also Trofimov may hope for a great result again..
Tinkoff surely with a few riders capable of doing something special today. Ovechkin had an early start:
1h07'57" as the time to beat here?
Well, given that he had slightly better weather conditions than those late starters, he actually may stand a chance ineed!
Yatsevich struggles, as he crosses the half-time split now:
+ 34" on Ovechkin, but at least 4 seconds faster than defending champion Trofimov!
Kovalev though does better:
new best time at this split, just two seconds faster than Ovechkin though!
Just two riders to follow. Kritskiy as the first:
and finally a time, that may put some pressure on the final starter - 25 seconds ahead of Kovalev!
And here comes the top-favorite Ignatiev.. still slightly worse conditions than early in the day, but Kritskiy still delivered:
+ 17" for Ignatiev, so he has to make up some ground in the second half!
Looking at the final split times now:
Kovalev setting the best time 12" faster than Ovechkin..
Kritskiy crushing him by 38" though!
Ignatiev fighting back?
Well, not really: 28" deficit with just 10km remaining!
Too much to make up for on this final sector?
Kritskiy took the provisional lead at the finish by quite a margin (47 seconds) on Kovalev..
..and Ignatiev? Still in World Championships-shape?
Yap.. 37" behind Kritskiy and another runner-up after last year's loss against Trofimov! Tinkoff retains the Russian TT-title!
Russian Championships will be held in Voronezh, featuring a flat road race. Proudly presented by Tinkoff, will we see the sprinters deliver?
