A sunny day and even though we have some notable crosswind blowing at the begin of the race, the weather conditions will be close to perfect with the winds going down to less than 10kmh soon.
Hagen with the big goal to add this prestigious HC event to his palmares. Van Garderen as his biggest competitor, surely with the same target. Schreurs, Anuar Aziz, Kinoshita as the next best puncheurs, Ignatiev as another threat for at least the podium here.
Scully would then go and initiate another attack and with two more riders joining him, we've found the break of the day with 182km left in the race:
Chtioui Scully Kiflay
The trio would build a lead up to six minutes, when the peloton would slowly start chasing with about 115km remaining. Several teams with some short shifts in the pursuit, but Grieg takes over the main work now: Lindgren, Dempster, Andersen. Some support from Newton Foundation, where Kuznetsov does some shifts as well.
A moment of shock for Juul-Jensen, who punctured with something like 110km remaining. He got all the support from his teammates then and with the pace in the peloton not yet hitting it's peak, he's brought back to pack quickly. This probably hasn't cost him too much energy.
Kiflay and Scully drop Chtioui with still 50km to go. The new leading duo is 2'50" ahead of the peloton now. The major climbs have already been passed, but there's still the two crucial climbs to come.
Hatanaka now leading the peloton (that is still at 128 riders) into the final 25km of the race. The penultimate climb of the race hasn't done any damage, but the gap to the leading duo has been decreased to 1'34" in the meantime.
Chtioui has already been reeled in and together with Meiji (Tsuboki, Hatanaka, Arashiro), there's also Newton (Abreu), Indosat (Belmokhtar, Russo, Ji) and Grieg (Andersen, Lunke) sharing the work in the pursuit.
And now only 10km to go - the riders enter the bottom of the crucial climb: 'Bordako Tontorra', just 2.4km long, but with slopes up to 19%!
And that's exactly the point, where the first big guns attack - just when Kiflay (Scully has been caught before) is finally caught:
Van Garderen and Hagen attack on the steepest sector!
Kinoshita jumps behind quickly, but the duo opened up a 14" gap already!
Schreurs following Kinoshita and there's a further 10" gap on the peloton, where a few more riders try to accelerate as well..
Van Garderen and Hagen though certainly went for an impressive attack here - they enter the final downhill sector (7km to the finish) with a comfortable gap on the chasing duo!
47 seconds, to be precisive. The two top favorites might already have launched the crucial move today!
Kinoshita and Schreurs teaming up, but the gap will be hard to close now. At least, the duo established a 27" gap on the peloton, where no one could get away on the climb (Rui Costa as the last one to try, but he failed).
The attempts to follow the four succesfull attackers though made for a major split in the pack: 34 riders with a small advantage over the remaining 89 riders in the biggest group. A few of those 34 though maintain the more promising positions at the very front of a quite stretched group, that is already 1'27" behind Hagen/TVG with now less than 6km to go:
in that order Kwiatkowski Russo Quevedo Gautier Schachmann Ignatiev Klemme Costa Anuar Aziz Shushemoin Vogt Khalilikhosroshani Reichenbach Kadri
and then there's a small gap on the other riders in the group, yet the coverage counts them all as one group..
Biggest names not present in the 34-men-group:
Betancourt Teklit McEvoy Sanchez Gil Watson Barbin Zaini
Just 2.6km to go for the leading duo, that is still 51" ahead of the chasing duo! It's pretty clear, that we will get a sprint decision between Hagen and Van Garderen here. Surely some kind of best-case scenario from a neutral perspective.
Schreurs and Kinoshita couldn't bridge across the leading two, but they are still 36" ahead of the next group. It seems that they will fight for the last podium spot. Schreurs in the leading position with the crosswinds no going up to 20kmh again.
The next group approaches the finish (less than 3km to go for them) and we see a changing order at the front of the group now:
in the most promising positions of those riders.. quite a strong showing from Schachmann so far: still working for his leaders or already going for his own?
A small gap behind those mentioned riders, but the group with Mohoric/Juul-Jensen/Vogt/Kump is still in striking distance!
But now for the victory: Hagen launching his sprint from a slightly worse position, but Van Garderen struggles to go past the big favorite..
..who takes the win, that he came for: Hagen delivers in this iconic race and adds another big win to his palmares. With all the pressure he got (like everytime this season), this has definitely been an impressive sprint.
Van Garderen though deserve special applause today: getting away on the steepest climb, with the overwhelming favorite at his side.. giving him a huge fight until the very end. He would have deserved the win as well, but of course, someone has to settle for the runner-up. Still a great result after a great attack.
The chasing duo comes in 48 seconds later:
Kinoshita sprints to a comfortable 3rd ahead of Schreurs! Both did very well to go clear from the main group on the crucial climb and to hold on to their advantage until the finish. They will/should be happy with their respective results today.
The sprint for 5th place is on now: Schachmann has cracked in the meantime, it had to be expected somehow. Eight riders with a gap on Schachmann, who's narrowly ahead of the next bigger group with Vogt, Klemme, Mohoric, Reichenbach, Juul-Jensen and Kump:
Kwiatkowski leading the 8-men-group into the final kilometre!
A super strong Russo right behind him, Gautier/Ignatiev on the further positions.. a small gap on Khalilikhosrashani/Anuar Aziz, Costa and Paulinho!
1'23" behind Hagen, Kwiatkowski takes the 5th place thanks to a strong sprint finish!
Russo with an upsetting 6th ahead of Ignatiev then. That's definitely the biggest surprise of the day. What an outstanding result for someone, who rode as a domestique here.
Gautier, Costa and Anuar Aziz complete the Top-10 ahead of Paulinho and another strong Indosat domestique Khalilikhosroshani as 12th in the race. Quite an impressive result for Indosat: despite Anuar Aziz missing out on a Top-5 result (that he surely must have been hoped for), the team finishes with 6-10-12 eventually. Russo as the biggest scorer of those three.
..also Berg with a good team result, as Schachmann finishes 13th ahead of Quevedo and Kadri!
Shushemoin leads the bigger group across the line, as 16th ahead of Debesay, Mohoric, Palini, Vogt and Klemme (21st). Kump (23rd) was never a bigger factor today. Reichenbach (24th) lost quite some ground eventually, just like Juul-Jensen (27th), who won't be satisfied at all.
Some disappointing results for Teklit (41st), Barbin (42nd), Watson (45th), McEvoy (48th) and a shocking result for Betancourt (52nd), who finishes two places ahead of last year's third Sanchez Gil..
