Berner Rundfahrt is a 170 km one-day race in Switzerland. A lot of the top sprinters are present here, and they are the top favourites for this race, but as a the course is going over hilly circuit going up a hill called Frienisberg 5 times, we are right at the start of hopefully an interesting race. The biggest favourites are Lo Cicero, Guerao, Vantomme, Zabel and Kump.
The race starts with an immediate attack of 6 riders. These are: Georgiev Kamp Kimmince Acevedo Armee Thalmann
They are able to open up 30' gap but Chaves isn't letting them going anywhere. Peloton has once again 143 riders.
Only a while later Kimmince starts a new wawe of attacks. 4 riders are following his move: Georgiev Armee Thalmann Ludvigsson
First three mentioned riders are successful with their moves for a while, the other two are chased down by the peloton. However team Valio isn't letting the break to go anywhere for too long and they are quickly chased down.
Finally after 60 km of the race were able to get a minute advantage over the main field. These two riders are Armee and Paulus
While the pace in the main field was really high, some riders already dropped. And even some bigger names: Corioni Van Poppel Jans Gatto Vantomme Appollonio Aregger Ventoso Vinther Grillo Pelucchi
Team Euskaltel are even in a bigger problem. Their leader Bouhanni crashed and is 4'20" behind the peloton. All riders with the exception of Bret have waited for their leader and are trying to get him back into the game for today's win. At the same incident riders Morabito, Last and Hampton have crashed out of the race.
Teams Valio and Lierse are not letting two leading riders anywhere. With 100 km to go we once again have all tries for getting a gap chased down.
The pace of the race however remains really high and with 3 of 5 laps completed, the riders dropped from the peloton are still behind and not getting anywhere closer.
With 65 km to go we have another 5 riders trying to get away. These riders are: Chtioui De Backer Juarez Tolleson Zaraliev
They are not successul with their effort either and are chased down with 60 km to go. We once again have a group of 87 leading riders and the pace is still quite high.
In the next 10 km the pace finally went a little bit down and so Jans was able to take an advantage of the situation and was able to bridge the gap from the first group of dropped riders right back into the peloton.
With 40 km to go two Novatek team mates are trying to get away. Cancellara and Vermote.
But they are not getting anywhere either. Zingle quickly chases them down.
We are about to go over Frienisberg hill for the last time.
We have 25 km to go and it is Jans who tries his luck first! The interesting thing about him is that he is the only riders who was able to jump from dropped group right back into the peloton. And he is attacking from the group right now! A few other riders are trying to follow him: Marentes Chaves Zingle Rabon Bellis Kadri
However, once again no attacks are successful at all and we have a compact group with 23 km to the finish line. A few worse riders are starting to sruggle in the back of the peloton, but no big names involved so far.
Frienisberg even for the 5th time today hasn't made a big difference to the main field. Andriato and Tolleson were the only bigger names that were not able to stay over the hill in the peloton.
We have 17 km to go and Summerhill is trying his luck in the downhill.
However concentrated effort of team Novatek quickly ends up today's hopes of the American.
At the back Zingle is without energy and is dropped.
It looks like everything is going to end up in a mass sprint.
Or maybe not? Summerhill is once again trying to get away from the main field!
With 3 km to go, Summerhill has a small advantage over the peloton. While Rabon and Vermote are trying to chase him down. Then we have a line of puncherus with a good final kick following each other: Breschel, Reimer, Jans and Bellis. All big stars that were able to stay in the peloton are involved in the first third of the main bunch, however we can't see any organisation of the final sprint so far.
And the final sprint starts! While Summerhill still has an advantage over the peloton, the biggest stars from the back are trying hard to get first to 'Ziel' today. Lo Cicero is going hard, while he has Guerao on his back wheel. Selig is also making his move.
With 1.5 km to go, Lo Cicero is clearly the fastest man so far! He sprints around Summerhill, while he has a lot of challengers behind him. From the left to right on this picture these are: Kump Zabel Rabon Vermote Jans Reimer Bellis Selig Breschel Juarez Guerao Kadri Richeze Reinhardt
The situation seems to be really confusing at the moment.
Die letzten kilometer! Lo Cicero is still leading, while Kump, Reimer, Guerao, Zabel and surprisingly Rabon seems to be the biggest challengers for the win at the moment! Van Asbroeck waited with his move and is going really fast from the back, but it is probably to late for him now.
With half km to go Lo Cicero totally lost his speed and he won't take the win for sure! Guerao, Jans and Bellis, Reinhardt, Reimer and Kump were able to overtake him. This is going to be a close one!
And it is Guerao on the line! Bellis and Reinhardt complete the podium, big hero of the day Jans finishes 4th, while probably the biggest favourite Lo Cicero finishes only 10th!
