206 km but the first half will mainly serve to soften the legs and allowing someone to show themselves in the break.
Favourites
There is a lot of riders on the same level as the outsiders so it's hard to predict in details.
A lot of riders want to get in the break so the pace is high from the start.
After 35 km no one has managed to get a gap.
But then something finally happens and 6 riders get away. They are: Nitu, Carignano, Hintersteiner, Locatelli, Savitskiy, Habera and Calvar.
With 150 km to go they have 3'40
Hitting the first cobbles they have 86 km to the finish line and 4'20 to the break.
It's a very long stretch but being the first sector it goes rathe undramatic in both the break and the peloton, where Project: Africa holds the front.
After 10 km of cobbles the gap is down to 3'24
Boing - Bulgaria leads the peloton into the second set of cobbles with 45 km to go and the gap down to 2'19.
A few of the worst cobblers have started to get shelled of the back of the peloton and with 37 km to go it finally crack in two big groups leaving 112 in the main peloton.
Atshba decides that it's time for some real racing so he attacks with 31,5 km to the finish line just before the cobbles really start coming close together.
AMEX take the responsibility to chase behind, but will it be enough to rell one of the strongest cobblers here back in?
Turns out the question really is whether reeling him in was the plan at all as Larsen quickly goes to the front and just pulls away from teh rest of the peloton in his chase of the African.
48 riders remain in the main peloton.
Things get complicated to get an overview over as the remains of the break merges with the main peloton. All that while Larsen keeps pulling and Atsbha keeps pulling further away.
With 20 km to the finish line he has a gap of 48 seconds.
As the win looks more and more likely to go to Project: Africa the remaining favourites starts racing for 2nd place. Strelkov with a strong attack 16 km from the finish line with one cobbled sector to go.
The gaps and groups:
Strelkov is caught and Becis counters.
The Latvian gets a gap while the remaining favourites are caught up by the chasing peloton. Or rather Jouffroy with around 40 riders sticking to his wheel. Zhilenko creates a new front group leaving the final cobbled sector. Valiausa, Larsen, Strelkov and Maric follows.
Larsen counterattacks!
Larsen joins forces with Becis while the other 4 once again drops back into the main group.
Atsbha keeps it going and no one was even close to catching him today. He could have saved a bit of energy for cheering though.
It turns tactically between Becis and Larsen and instead of decidinf the podium between them they can see the peloton come blasting with 2 km left. Maric takes the lead with 1,5 km to go
The left lane is the fast lane in this sprint as Zhilenko, Strelkov and Wilson blocks the right side.
The podium battle is extremely close, while Live Nation surprises with many rider in the top. Especially the Icelandic rider Elfarsson puts in a strong ride for his RR-debut. An indication that Iceland as a cycling nation might not be as far fetched as expected by many?
In case of point equality the TTT decides. For the team classification the best team in the TTT wins the compatison, but in the individual priority is given to points won in the other races. Edited by Atlantius on 06-05-2015 09:33
