A 255km hilly parcours around Ponferrada will decide over the Intercontinental Champion 2015. A terrific startlist with three teams each from the four continents, featuring some totally overpowered line-ups.
The top-favorites come from Europe: former world champion Hagen, Bakelants, Trofimiv as Europe's team leaders, while also Van Garderen should be considered as one of today's most promising contenders. Asia (McCarthy/Bobridge or Kinoshita) and Africa (Craven/Ben Nasser) may hope to fool those premium puncheurs.
Spoiler
An interesting breakaway group goes early and is quickly allowed to go for a comfortable gap. No European involved, so the top-teams will be under pressure to control the race:
Gilanipoor
Jang
Poorseyedi (Asia)
Rabie (Africa)
Godoy
Mudarra
Soler (America)
will build this 7-men-group..
It's of course a loooong way to go and the peloton allows their gap to grow up to 14 minutes with still 174km to go.
Due to slicky roads, we still see many crashes in the bunch today:
Schumacher, Roche and Ben Nasser were caught in a crash earlier on (with Schumacher not managing to fight back).
76km before finish (the break leading by 6 minutes), a group with Skujins, Spilak and Flügel hits the turf as well! Definitely some drama for Spilak in particular, but opposing to Schumacher, all of those "crashees" will make their way back into the now harder chasing peloton!
Europe's colors all over the place, leading a good looking pursuit, as we now enter the final 50km of the race:
the breakaway's advantage went down to 1'30" in the meantime and it seems that the favorite teams will deliver today. No real surprise looking at those strong line-ups..
And yes, the early escapees were caught 20km before finish (with Soler as the last man standing). Trofimov launched a first move there, but couldn't open up a gap.
Anyway, the Russian is amongst a group of 5 riders, which tries to go clear with now 13km remaining:
Bakelants
Trofimov
Van Garderen
Spilak
Hagen
So the top-favorites make their moves and Europe is well represented here! Spilak apparently not affected from his crash, by the way..
Strange enough though, that no one else would try to follow this five! The peloton sits up and so it would come down to this leading group of top-puncheurs to battle for line honours.
3km before finish, Trofimov is in trouble to keep the pace of his attack companions! The Russian may suffer from his solo effort earlier on.. Hagem now pacing the 4-men-group towards the finish!
And we're entering the sprint with no more attempt to attack inside the final 12km..
A tactical sprint for sure, Bakelants goes into the leading position with a strong kick with 600metres to go!
Bakelants still with a narrow lead over Van Garderen, who's closing up with a strong sprint and the line approaching!
A lapped rider may cause some trouble for Spilak, who's maybe too far behind Bakelants anyway. Hagen won't be in the mix for line honours..
..and Europe misses out on the victory! Van Garderen lungs in for a very close win over Bakelants and Spilak! A perfectly timed sprint for the US boy, who kicks off his season with a bang.
The peloton would cross the line 8 minutes later and some fast guys would win the bunch sprint for 6th place: Bewley easily ahead of Meyer, Houle and Ponzi. Still a weird race behind the leading group, as no one even tried to battle for a minor Top-10 placing. Easy action for Bewley then.
