And so there it is, the Gisborne GP will get on track today, and it will do so in the whereabouts of Gisborne, New Zealand: the easternmost district of the country, 500 kms North-East Wellington. It’s literally raining cats and dogs this morning, which could spice up the race quite a bit, if it ever would be needed.
As anticipated yesterday, it’s the top puncheurs’ race to lose, in particular, Kinoshita’s, who will have to face the fierce opposition of the likes of Anuar Aziz, Roche, Gautier, and tens of outsiders, or well, second tier favorites. Let’s kick it off then!
The break that forms as soon as the race is officially underway is made up of 3 riders: Joseph, Bjelkmark and Shapira are part of it.
Their advantage touches 5 minutes in multiple occasions, especially at the end of the first lap of the first circuit.
Rain gets heavier and heavier, and thus, riders need to pay attention. No one has fallen yet, fortunately, but any kind of misfortune is always behind the corner in these conditions. Meiji take control of the pack.
The gap gets up to 8 minutes with 150 to go and the riders are close to the 2nd lap of the circuit.
Thanks to multiple teams' forcing, particularly Meiji’s, In-n-Out’s and Ayubowan’s, the gap goes down to less than 5 minutes as we near the most interesting part of the race, with about 100 to go.
The three of them can only count on a 2 minutes and a half advantage when the next climb starts. 60 kms to go, but the situation stagnates a bit as the teams that were relaying before are now sparing their domestiques for later, and the advantage gets up to 4 minutes again. Meiji are the only ones taking turns at this point, but they’re not going at full gas as they were before.
Thanks to the Asians' continuous efforts, the gap goes down to 1 minute and a half with 30 to go and just the 2 laps of the final climb to face, besides of course the downhill that will take there.
Not pic worthy I know but look at who is in front of the pack. IT’S HIM LADS! The one and only MG hero! Ciaran fucking Cassidy! Thanks to his majestic efforts, the gap goes down to just 1 minute with 20 to go.
Shapira attacks as the other 2 are really close to get eaten up by the main bunch as you can see. He wants to win the prize for most combative rider of the day, if something like that even exists, as no one amongst the 3 pretty much stood out.
Bjelkmark and Joseph get caught in the meantime, with only 14 to go. Their break mate, on the other hand, is still comfortably in front as he nears the first ascent up the final climb.
Huge achievement for Shapira who makes it alone until the 6 kms to go mark, but then inevitably gets caught. He made it in front on his own until the top of the first lap of the final climb and half of the following descent.
Last 3 kilometers to go, and the final hurdle for everyone is already underway. Kinoshita basically attacks as soon as he has the chance to do so, deciding not to follow other riders’ moves but rather go for his own full-hearted attempt.
The Japanese is closely followed by Gautier, Roche and van den Hugenhaben, as well as from a few other riders. All the favorites seem to be in the front anyway.
Kinoshita doesn’t manage to create a gap between himself and the rest of his rivals, and that’s certainly not good for him: he definitely spent some precious energy to go for the win so far from the likely final sprint. The only option he has now is keep going and hope he can drop everyone else somehow, as clearly no one is dumb enough to go and take turns. 2 kms to go.
We can see that these leading 5, Kinoshita, Gautier, Cunego, Roche and Anuar Aziz, managed to gap the rest of the peloton.
van der Hugenhaben initially tried to hang in and stay in the front, but clearly he didn’t manage to keep the leaders’ pace, and he now finds himself in a weird position in between the top 5 and the peloton. He doesn’t seem to be able to get back. The rest of the favorites are all in the big pack you can see in the left of the image.
Flamme rouge! Kinoshita’s pace considerably and visibly dropped of late, as van der Hugenhaben makes it back there, eventually.
Kinoshita seems to have it regardless, and he starts his final sprint in perhaps what you wouldn’t call the best position, but definitely in a great manner as no one seems to have seen his acceleration coming. Gautier and Cunego are trying to keep themselves not far from his wheel nonetheless.
The situation doesn’t change at all, and Kinoshita takes what could have looked like an impossible win at the 2 kms to go mark. Absolutely unreal show of strength. Watch out, puncheurs. Gautier is 1st among the humans in 2nd place.
Cunego holds on to 3rd to close the podium, Roche has technically overtaken him, but sadly for him, that only just happened when the finish line was crossed by both of them. Anuar Aziz is 5th, whilst van der Hugenhaben had to spend too much to get back in the last few kms and has to settle for a still honorable 6th he fought hard for.
Bilbao wins the bunch sprint for 7th, with Caruso 8th and Vogt 9th in front of Palini who rounds off the top 10.
