The peloton is ready to kick off the Seskin Classic and we're looking forward to an hopefully eventful race today.
Di Maggio, McCarthy, Kelderman and Dowsett as the top-favorites, with several more possible threats for a victory here.
The story of the breakaway(s) is quickly told: a first group with Brown and Maldonado as the most notable names was never allowed a bigger gap than a minute and got caught by the bunch already into the first half of the race.
Karatzios would then go for a solo-attempt and the Greek is indeed today's only escapee, establishing a gap up to 4 minutes at it's peak.
He's still leading by 1'30" with now 29km remaining and the first serious attack out of the bunch (84 riders) occuring:
Bellis makes his move on the tricky descend!
One lap later (18km to go), the Brit is still (just) a few seconds ahead of the main group and hasn't yet bridge across Karatzios either.
On the penultimate climb, we see the next favorites trying to follow Bellis:
Kelderman, Monfort, Amanuel and Ben Nasser with their first moves here!
Only Kelderman and Monfort managed to close the gap to Bellis, as those build a new 3-men-group that is still not with Karatzios, as we have about 10km to go:
38" behind group Bellis, there's a second chasing group built: McCarthy, Amanuel and Ben Nasser were joined by Boily!
Furhter 36" in arrears, the bunch (32 riders) with Di Maggio, Betancourt and Meyer..
Already being dropped and another minute behind: Roy!
5km to go - final climb: Kelderman, Monfort and Bellis finally catching up to Karatzios!
+ 32" for McCarthy, Boily, Amanuel, Ben Nasser
+ 16" for the 32-men-peloton
+ 1'23" for Roy
Karatzios suffered from his efforts on this climb and got swallowed by the bunch with now just 3.5km remaining.
Group Bellis/Kelderman leading by 30 seconds on the next group, where McCarthy goes clear now!
Ben Nasser gets reeled in by the bunch, while Boily and Amanuel are still fighting to stay a few seconds ahead..
The leading group though seems to hold off those chasers, as they enter the final corner with still a notable gap there: Kelderman kicking off the sprint from the front..
Bellis can't hang on and it's a thrilling sprint between Monfort and Kelderman! They are head-to-head with just one meter to go.. who will lung in for the victory?
Monfort! What a close win, but the veteran had a very fast finishing kick to go past an unlucky Kelderman!
Bellis completing the podium for still a satisfying result..
+ 31" for McCarthy then
Boily and Amanuel going for 5th and 6th, finishing ahead of the first big group! A great effort from Amanuel today, who might have been given the "green light" with Dowsett obviously not amongst the best here..
+ 51" for this group then, with Zingle, Felline, Pozzato and Meyer completing the Top-10!
This means quite disappointing results for Betancourt (13), Ben Nasser (15), Dowsett (17) and Di Maggio (18).. a quiet race from those guys, really.
At least, there's (often) a Roy performing even worse:
+ 2'12" for Roy as 41th! He got dropped by the main group quite early, so didn't really look competitive today.
Final Results/ Note: I couldn't access to the results-page thanks to the stage always crashing prior to the podium celebration. So no full results, I'm sorry.
