A very warm welcome to the 6th edition of the Philadelphia International Championship! My name is Croatia14, and today I will guide you through the PCM.daily coverage of this C1 race.
On the block we have 24 teams participating today. Starting with #1 we have Vanderbiest for VisitUkraine. He is reepresentative for the from the experts favourized sprinters here.
Before the race we asked 3 local journalists here what their favourites are, and surprisingly none of them answered with a pure sprinter. So the three names we got are Jonathan Bellis, Danny Summerhill and Tosh Van der Sande. Will one of the three guys will be the winner today and the locals do know more than we do? Let`s find out soon!
The day with 173 kms of racing around Philly starts and immediately after the neutralization we see the first attempts for a morning break.
The first guy to attack is the Isrelian guy Shapira, followed by Dulanjana and Jiatz. They got caught back in by a fast peloton. The next couple of moves are unsuccessful, but then it's Frohlinger and Mas managing to get away and have an advantage of a minute and a half over the first crossing of the finishing line.
And wow it looks a lot tougher than many managers might have expected it here! However, the group already has 2 minutes and 30 and looks like being the break of the day.
Just when we wanted to go into the commercial breeak another group tries to come accross, so that the peloton increases their pace as well. Will it be all together soon now? Doesn't look like that as the peloton calls them back with 144km to go. Still the duo upfront with an advaantage of 45 seconds only.
Some unsuccessful attacks later the peloton decides to let the 2 guys go again to go over the 3 minute mark as the hill is crossed the second time. With a last picture of the chasing peloton,...
...that is almost 4 minutes down with 122km to go, we go into the commercial break.
Here we are back again with 80 kilometers to go, the advantage is down to 4 and a half minutes. Lierse, Spotify, Azteca, Hugo Boss, Arrinera and Novatek shared the pace making so far, and gave the breakaway a maximum advantage of nearly 6 minutes for 100 kilometer.
We recognized that a steady wind starts to occure speeding up slowly all the time. It will be sidewind before the final ramp and then headwind up to the finishing line if it stays as it's now.
The peloton is slowly eating into the advantage, no attacks coming up. No crashes until here, 60 kilometers to go. The break is still 3'20 ahead, but...
...some teams joined the pace sharing: Ayubowan, Strava and Eritel. It seems like lots of teams have an interest in a mass sprint today.
With 38,6 kilometers left our breakaway duo of Karcher and Prio has climbed the finishing hill for the third-last time.
They still lead over the pack with more than two minutes, and are not in sight on the steep hill. We see Ayubowan and Lierse still very active in the pack.
With 31 km to go we see the first attacko of the hot racing part...
...coming from Arrinera rider Cedric Lebris. Only a fake attack for his captains or a straight move? Well he tries to use the tailwind but this is immediately countered by a raging pack and railed in. The strong effort though was made from Aberasturi, we would have expected him to lead out Kump initially. 1.33 left for the break.
The next move comes not far later though, with 22 kms to go it's...
Marcos that has a crack for CT team Chiquita on the left side of the road. He tries to come away in the crosswinds. It looks though like it that Corioni is able to bring this one back for Van der Sande.
Attack on the penultimate hill!
Over the top it's Frohlinger that decides that he has to has a go, distancing his breakaway mate Mas as the peloton is well in sight now and under a minute away. Stupid motorbikes though are staying between the groups, didn't we had too many crashes caused by motos in cycling lately?
Well the peloton is obviously not happy with that, and the team that chases is again...
...Hugo Boss in the person of Marcato. Burning two major leadout men they surely have to have a good feeling leader in Kump. But also Lierse is still very much involved for Van Asbroeck.
But these two teams together with Strava on the front let the gap to Frohlinger, who surprisingly was rejoined by a strong Mas, grow over a minute again with 15.5 km to go. Could the break really have a chance here?
Well, with 12 km to go...
... Mas is finally cooked and has to let his companion go. Still a minute for Frohlinger on full gas now!
9 km to go!
Mas is done and a snack for a raging peloton now. Still upfront is Marco Marcato, but still they have 37 seconds disadvantage.
5.5 km and now it looks...
dead and gone. Hugo Boss did their work, and then Alexander fucking Kamp came and ripped the race apart for Reimer. It's not only farewell to the ambitions of Frohlinger, but also to a main part of the peloton as his pace split the group on the crosswinds. Only 66 riders left in the peloton, and many others in behind. You can see for example Ayubowan chasing hard as they completely lost to join the move for Petit. Back in behind we see also:
Bouhanni Drapac Richeze Reinhardt Thorsen Avelino Lavoine Jans
All of these surely won't be able to come back, as the pace in the second group is too slow.
4 km and finally Frohlinger is caught. He did show a great race today. Now it's time for trains, and the clearly dominant because only one seems to be...
...Lierse for Van Asbroeck. He still has Gaviria, Moscon, Waeytens and Peeters in front of him, while the opponence is batteling for his wheel. Impey looks to be in the prime position in terms of that in front of Haussler and Reimer, but still it's anybodys race.
Suddenly Eritel builds up a train on the left, can they contest Lierse? No they can't as a swiping Moscon destroys their train. So is today the perfect day for Lierse?
It looks like it! With 1.7 km to go they have the dominant train and still 2 man in front of Van Asbroeck. The opponence has to fight hard to even reach their backwheels! The situation now looks like this:
Waeytens
Peeters
Van Asbroeck
Ayoune
Haussler
Van Heerden
Impey
Guerao
Reimer
Granjel Cabrera
Matysiak
Bellis
Moscon
Vanderbiest
Kump
Too far back already, but kind of in that row the likes of Van der Sande + 2 helpers, Kuznetsov, Maes, Baugnies, van der Hugenhaben, Lo Cicero, Summerhill, Kadri.
The sprint goes now on full gas but we suddenly have a dramatic change of the scenery. Peeters suddenly is fully cooked and loses his wheel in the train, so that Van Asbroeck has to accelerate early to get back on his leadout man. While that happens his opponence starts his sprint and ...
... Van Asbroeck rides a wave to slow down and accelerate again. Now he is behind Reimer and Haussler in terms of speed and position, but he might have saved enough energy as we reach the last 600 meters.
Now the road starts to rise and the sprint is getting a very tough one, especially with the headwind, that is not as hard as earlier this day but still notable here. 400 meter left and...
... Guerao goes hard. It should be between the 5 men of
Reimer Haussler Guerao Van Asbroeck
and Impey.
Maybe the latest has saved the most energy on the wheel of Van Heerden though?
Doubtable. Reimer accelerates away from Guerao with fantastic speed, the colombian won't win today with 300m to go.
Is anybody else up to the challenge? You see the answer with 100 meter to go:
A big no as Reimer goes furious and can already start celebrating. He crosses the line...
...first, in front of...
...the quartet of Haussler, Guerao, Van Asbroeck and Impey. Behind these...
... Granjel Cabrera, Matysiak, Kump, Bellis and Vanderbiest to round the Top10 well.
The laterne rouge today goes to...
Cummings in a tough fight with Darbinyan for it.
We will close this one with the podium celebration of Reimer here in Philly:
Thanks for joining us here on PCM.daily. It's been a great day of racing with a dramatic finish. I'll leave you with the final results and a see you next time here.
USA 
