Acropolis Cup
C2HC Classic
Hello, and welcome to sunny Athens in Greece for the 2nd edition of the Acropolis Cup. A hilly circuit race, the peleton will take climbs a total of 14 times in their bid for glory today. All eyes will be on the likes of
Klemme,
Barbin and
Yates today for who can take the honours from the favourites on the start line.
We have just a lone breakaway on the first lap, as Gabonese NC
Cedric Thaouta jumped clear off the front of the peleton.
Norris and
Novardianto tried to join the La Poste man up the road, but were strangely pulled back by the peleton.
Many of the favourite's teams took the early control of the peleton, with
Chiquita,
Kraftwerk,
MOL and
Ferrero all very visible on the front of the main group.
CRASH! Off camera, three riders hit the deck hard. Given the sunny, calm conditions, you can't blame this on the weather today. Must have been a touch of wheel.
Maarten Wynants and
Daan Rijntjes are back up of their bikes, but sadly
Norris is forced to abandon.
Kraftwerk continues to set the pace on the front as we reached the halfway stage.
Podium Ambition began to show themselves a little more, but the overall speed of the main group was very low.
This played perfectly into the hands of
Thaouta, who continues to press on off the front. His lead would max out at 5'08" with 74km to go.
For next 4-5 laps, not much had happened really...
Kraftwerk continued to set the pace, and
Thaouta continued to press on off the front. With 3 laps remaining, he still had a 2'04" lead. It was looking like it will be touch and go for the catch.
Two laps to go, and it was down to 1'23".
Kraftwerk were stringing out the peleton behind, as a lot of domestiques and tier 3 riders went out the back door. One main name though who was struggling and just managing to hang on was
Grega Bole.
One lap to go, and
Thaouta still had 1'11" advantage.
Kraftwerk were all out of idea and not the attacks began in the peleton. There was nothing calculated about them though. It was almost blind panic.
Trying to go clear, we have
Hategeka,
Barbin and
De Maar, with
Yates,
Klemme and the others all expecting a sprint finish.
On the descent towards the line,
Podium Ambition suddenly realised that they might need to chase back the trio.
Robov lead the remaining peleton into the final 5km.
Kinney looked well positioned at the front, as did
Diggle with
Davison for company.
Further down the line,
Alaphilippe sat with
Yates and
Klemme on his wheel.
Khripta is the man in shot for New Balance
[
Sorry but it seems that my laptop did not capture the last 3 screens of the race]
Back at the front,
Thaouta was in no danger of getting caught. Despite the attacks and chase from a few riders, he used the descent to his advantage, taking the victory in the process!
In the sprint for second,
Enrico Barbin got the better of
Marc De Maar in 3rd and
Gasore Hategeka in 4th.
Simon Yates won the reduced bunch sprint for 5th, ahead of
Kinney,
Diggle and
Klemme.
Marcello Pavarin crossed the line in 9th, with
Gaëtan Bille rounding out the Top 10.
