Ukraine’s mountainous NC course should provide for interesting racing - Ratiy and Krasnoperov are the best pure climbers but less well rounded than Karnulin, with Nemiroff also bringing a number of potential wildcards.
With 28km to go we see the first selection, with Buts, Bratashcuk, Zmorka, Prevar and Orlov the professional riders dropped - only 11 remain in the group now.
Prevar manages to bridge back, as do Buts and Bratashcuk slightly later. However, Dzhus puts in an acceleration soon after which splits the group once again. The result is 9 riders together with 14km to go - Karnulin, Padun, Ratiy, Topchanyuk, Kononenko, Krasnoperov, Dzhus and Prevar.
Once again, Prevar is dropped - perhaps paying for his earlier efforts, followed soon after by Padun and Topchanyuk. With 5km to go then, there remain only 5 riders up front. But who will attack first?
It won’t be Kononenko as he cracks soon after, but with 3km to go we still have a front group of 4, making a group sprint a real possibility.
Ratiy picks up the pace with 2km to go and distances Dzhus, but he can’t shake Krasnoperov and Karnulin off his wheel...
Until under the Flamme Rouge, when Karnulin finally loses contact! Ratiy and Krasnoperov will fight out for the win it seems.
300m to go and Ratiy takes up the sprint from the front, looking strong - has he got this in the bag?
Yes! Vadim Ratiy is the 2018 Ukrainian RR champion, ahead of Krasnoperov and Karnulin.
The TT should be far more predictable - Marlen Zmorka would be a favourite in any TT in the world, so shouldn’t have too much difficulty here. But then anything can happen in a Time Trial.
Kononenko sets the first time of note, 1h10’03”.
His spell in the hot seat is short though, as Krasnoperov goes 47 seconds faster.
We soon have a new leader though, as Dmitri Grabovski beats Krasnoperov’s time by a single second.
However Zmorka unsurprisingly destroys the competition, catching and passing Golovash - in the background here - and ultimately taking victory in a time of 1h06’55”!
