Welcome to Ringerike for the punchy race in Norway. Todays bookings see Flügel, McCarthy and Roche as the favourites for todays race:
The first surprise for the peloton is that we face pretty heavy wind today, blowing not only from one side but changing their directions constantly. This should suit the likes of riders with good energy stats, such as Kinoshita, Roche and van der Hugenhaben.
Caused by the wind we had a very nervy start with many attacks on the road. Mostly they were wasted energies, and riders that managed to gap an advantage quickly ran out of energy and fell back in the peloton. Latest was controlled by Banc na hÉireann for Jay McCarthy and Meiji - JR East for Tomohiro Kinoshita. At 155km before the finishing line we even see...
...the first splits in the peloton caused by the high pace the men in black and yellow are setting. You see here maybe the fastest first hour of a Man-Game race this season. Meiji is really putting the hammer down and now Wiesenhof joins them for their man Flügel. Every group that lost contact was able to get back so far though, but at the same time still no breakaway is formed. The peloton is fully streched out though...
...with 134 km to go. But then it looks like a break gets established. Firstly it's Shapira together with Hamilton in front, then Laporte joins the duo. One after the other Zurita and finally Maillet managing to bridge over and make it a 5-man group,...
...that has a significant advantage after more than 60kms of racing. Quickly the quintett increases their lead to more than 3 minutes, as the peloton seems to be happy with the group. A little surprisingly, as both Di Maggio and McCarthy have a teammate up the road.
The team that is working at the front of the peloton though still is...
...Meiji, having their japanese champion Shirota doing the main part.
The group reaches their maximum advantage with 6'32 seconds crossing the 90km to go banner. From then on the advantage of the group goes down, also because Wiesenhof invests a little more and puts Buchmann onto the front to help Shirota and Fukuda with controlling the group.
With 66 kms to go the peloton has eaten into the advantage of the leading group a little; it came down to 4'12. Why is this mark interesting? Because Top-10 candidate Bystrom hit the deck. Only a shock for him though as he quickly makes it back into the main pack just before the real action started.
Reaching the final 50 km the pace significantly increased in the pack. After that lightening start we had a very slow mid-race part, but now it's again...
... Buchmann and Fukuda speeding things up on the circuit in and around Ringerike. They pull the advantage from under 3 minutes with 50 to go to slightly over a minute with 37.5 to go.
On that point we are on the first slopes of the hill on the circuit, being the penultimate climb of this race.
Immediately the race radio leaves us with a message that one of the break members has crashed:
It's Gilber Zurita of Coldeportes, who can't sit back on his bike before the raging peloton reaches him.
But the crash wasn't too tragic as his breakaway mates also get caught on that hill.
Mainly caused by an active Wiesenhof squad putting the hammer down. The former stage winners team presents a fantastic uphill train here, containing of Buchmann - Preidler - Paulus and Esser for Flügel. The question arises if they did stuff too early, especially with the fresh Vontobel and Banc na hÉireann squads. Over the top a moment it looked like this as some other riders appeared at the front, but on the smoove descent...
...Wiesenhof goes back into full control. Also you see Meiji, who lost it a little on the climb, coming back to the fore. Near to the front we see the jerseys of
Flügel Kinoshita McCarthy Anuar Aziz Roche
and van der Hugenhaben
No signs of any attacks before the climb as the pace since the penultimate climb went flying again. It seems the case that strong guys feared the support of the main favourites and the profile, and therefore didn't attacl to not waste their energy.
In the last part of the downhill we also see some good preperation of additional favourites making up positions for the final climb, namely:
Klemme Vogt Bilbao Landa Bellis
and Kratochvila.
We couldn't spot the likes of Di Maggio, Costa and the UBS guys yet though.
The flat part of the final hill is fully in control of Georg Preidler, who perfectly guides his leader into the best possible position.
With 3.5 km we reach the steep part of the climb. 4 riders look to be in the prime position and race it from the fore side by side, which looks a little bit like Fleche Wallonie races nowadays. They are (starting on the right side of the road)...
Roche Flügel Kinoshita
and McCarthy.
Let the uphill drag race begin! The pace is too high for any attacks, so riders are dotting with the highest possible pace. With 1.6km to go it looks like it could really be...
the German champ Flügel being the strongest, he leads over McCarthy, Kinoshita and Roche.
Behind these we have a quickly upcoming CT beast Klemme (who struggles suddenly though), Costa, Zingle, Bilbao, Kratochvila, Di Maggio and Anuar Aziz spotted (in that row).
Remember though that the wind is a factor here. We have pretty strong wind that is either tailwind or sidewind on the last climb, depending on the direction of the slopes.
Passing the flamme rouge we find a tailwind section after the penultimate serpentine. There the German is still in the lead,
it even seems like he has opened up a gap with around 500 meters to go. Surely no one could take this one away of Flügel, who looks too comfortable over his main rivals from Japan and Australia. Only one left hander and then 150 meter of crosswind to come for the trio, as behind them another three riders look like they're batteling for the places 4-6: a very quickly upcoming Di Maggio, a slightly dropping Roche and a shadowing Anuar Aziz using the italians' slipstream really well.
But let's take a look at the front: Can somebody surprise on the final meters to take it away from what would be kind of a nostalgic win?
Nobody can! There is no doubt aboiut the strongest guy today, and that is Aleksandar Flügel. He could even think of a more than decent celebration on the line. Climbing with him onto the podium are Jay McCarthy and Tomohiro Kinoshita.
Behind the trio the best of the rest is...
...Cesare Di Maggio, who might have been the fastest man if you only count pure uphill speed but take out his bad positioning before the climb. Behind him Roche and Anuar Aziz come in as 5th and 6th.
With some additional seconds behind we see...
... Costa rolling in with a fast finish in front of Klemme and the best secondary leader in Zingle. The battle for the final Top 10 spot goes to Bilbao, he rounds off the Top10 in front of a falling Kratochvila and very disappointing Ayubowan guys.
We also want to show the prestigious Laterne Rouge, which goes to...
...Roy Goldstein for the otherwise quiet Generali-AXA.
Back to the victoriouswe want to close this out with a final shot of the winner, Aleksandar Flügel for Wiesenhof - Andritz. He's taking the winners trophy together with the flowers and the kisses in style.
Norway 
