Who will follow on Froome and Di Maggio here? Di Maggio himself? Surely the top favorite today. Also McCarthy, Kelderman or a so often delivering Monfort should be considered real threats - as a few more guys, of course.
Obviously a special race for Swedbank in particular. Finishing 5th with Skujins last year and 9th with Hoogerland two years ago, the local team certainly hopes for a similar strong performance today.
Quite an action-packed race in the first flat sector, as two first breakaway attempts are reeled in quickly:
Swedbank, RBC and of course Vontobel with an interesting move to manage placing a rider into the break of the day!
It's the usual business with the pack starting to chase halfway through the race, narrowing the 5-minutes-gap back to less than a minute with now the final two laps/climbs (16km) ahead. Bank of Ireland, Puma, TomTom and now mainly Nutresa with the heaviest workload in the chase.
Juul-Jensen and Di Maggio as the first favorites to attack!
Di Maggio failed to break clear from the pack, where Nutresa keeps pacing.. Duchesne attacking the early break, where Jallays already got dropped now..
No easy action for Juul-Jensen to hold off the top teams, but he's still at the front with now just 6km left and Duchesne still holding on to a 30"-gap on a group of 13 riders, that managed to get a gap on the pack:
McCarthy Kelderman Felline van der Hugenhaben Ben Nasser Monfort Betancourt Levarlet Meyer Juul-Jensen Bellis Hoogerland Reimer
Kinda surprising to see both Klemme and Di Maggio yet missing, since Nutresa worked so hard til this point!
Reimer and Juul-Jensen tried to attack this chasing group a few moments later and as they finally catch up to Duchesne (the other early escapees are back in the bunch), they are accompanied by McCarthy and Ben Nasser with now just 2km remaining!
The next group with Hugenhaben, Kelderman and Monfort ain't far behind though.. the pack with Di Maggio 38" in arrears!
The front group accelerates for the sprint now: McCarthy at the front with Hugenhaben now trying to bridge across the leading four!
Monfort, Meyer, Betancourt and Levarlet leading the next 8-men-group into the final kilometre..
van der Hugenhaben with a great kick to go past Juul/Reimer/Ben Nasser easily! He catches up to McCarthy and this may become a thrilling fight for line honours!
Betancourt with a small gap on the next group, where Kelderman struggles to follow!
Indeed a thriller today: Hugenhaben vs McCarthy...
..they go for a photo finish.. wow, how close..
..and it's McCarthy celebrating a narrow victory over van der Hugenhaben! This hardly could have been much closer here. Quite an impressive finish from Hugenhaben, but McCarthy fought back once the Dutchman caught up to him on the final few metres!
+ 12" Reimer, Ben Nasser, Juul-Jensen, Betancourt
Huge result for Reimer and Swedbank! He attacked early into the climb and that proved to be a crucial move. Ben Nasser with a fairly good performance as well, while Juul-Jensen finishes as best from his strong team today.
+ 24" for the next group, where Bellis sprints for 7th place!
Levarlet, Hoogerland and Monfort complete the Top-10 ahead of Meyer and Kelderman. The latter won't be happy with this result, but at least Felline (14th) adds some points as well.
Chaves (13th) better than Klemme (15th), who hadn't the legs it seems..
Same goes for Di Maggio, who launched an early attack with Juul-Jensen, but then failed to follow the crucial attacks. His 29th is definitely too less for his standards.
Simon (16th), Zingle (17th), Stachowiak (19th), Vakoc (23rd) and Vastaranta (28th) best for their teams here..
