Welcome to Slovakia! On a course near Ružomberok using the climb to Smrekovica, well known from Tatranska Klasika, we are going to find out who is going to be the new European B Champion.
Today's favourites are Panayotov, Giogieri, Stancu, Lövkvist and Vosekalns. The winner of the race secures for himself and his team mates a place for A race.
It took a huge amount of time to estabilish a breakaway of the day. After all, just Christofi and Paajanen were allowed to get away.
Due to high pace of mainly Bulgarian and Latvian domestiques, they could not build up a bigger gap than just 4 minutes.
With 2 laps of Smrekovica remaining and 50 km to go, the peloton has just 41 riders. The biggest missing names in the group are Kastrantas and Siskevicius. Escapees still have 3'20".
No attacks during the climb. Gap on the break got a lot smaller due to work of Ludvigsson.
At the start of the last lap on the circuit, the main group is 2 minutes behind the breakaway and now has just 25 riders, namely: Ludvigsson Panayotov Stancu Giogieri Vosekalns Lundberg Lövkvist Tvetcov Scarponi Shapira Koshevoy Öste-Macdonald Grigrian Skujins Hasanovic Ivanov Der Hasta Hortig Borisavljevic Sakalou Lehtinen Karagobek Samoilev Jiriakov
And we finally have an attack! Vosekalns is the rider. He quickly gets a half minute gap over the main field.
Vosekalns quickly catches both riders from breakaway, but Shapira, Sakalou and Giogieri are able to bridge the gap by their own pace as all other riders from peloton join the during the next km.
Giogieri and Scarponi lead the front group with a steady pace in the next few kms.
Just in the final km of the climb we finally have another attack. This time it is Scarponi, who is followed by Shapira and Giogieri.
But nobody was able to get away from the main group and we still have 15 riders when the road goes downhill. It looks like the fight for the win will be only between: Ludvigsson Öste-Macdonald Skujins Lövkvist Scarponi Giogieri Shapira Sakalou Grigrian Tvetcov Vosekalns Karagobek Koshevoy Panayotov Stancu
But we have a downhill attack! Scarponi, Shapira and Sakalou are these trying their luck.
But it is an unsuccessful attack once again and all is back together when we leave the mountain circuit on the way to finish in Ružomberok.
The pace in the group drops so much that two more riders are able to get back to the fight for win. These two are Borisavljevic and Ivanov. All other riders are more than 3 minute back though.
In the end it comes all down to the final sprint!
And it looks like it is Skujins on the line! Silver medal goes to Sweden thankfully to Ludvigsson as Shapira completes the podium.
Panayotov, 
Giogieri, 
Stancu, 
Lövkvist and 
Vosekalns. The winner of the race secures for himself and his team mates a place for A race.
Christofi and 
Paajanen were allowed to get away.
Kastrantas and 
Siskevicius. Escapees still have 3'20".
Scarponi
Shapira
Koshevoy
Grigrian
Hasanovic
Hasta
Jiriakov
