The best U23 riders in the world will fight today to win a World Championship... in U23 level. There are three big favourites for the win today, and probably they will be the only riders to actually fight for the medals today; Matej Mohoric, Silvio Herklotz and Merhawi Kudus. Mohoric as the better puncheur, but Herklotz and Kudus way better climbers. The first race in this route was the B World Championship, which was won by Aleksandr Pluchkin, a pure climber, something that gives us hint for what can happen today or in the main Road Race in Sunday
Three riders attack from the start and quickly build a nice gap; Vendrame, Gonzalez del Campo and Huynh. We get some information about a crash in the group, that only affects Moscon and Castrillo
And we don’t have to wait too much to have the first big crash of the day. Frankiny, Trakhov, Per, Geoghegan Hart, “Zouzou”, Matsumoto, Liu, Strakhov, Contreras, Schlegel, Kumara, Ariesen and Boudat are the riders involved in the crash
First time for the group climbing Inadasake; over 200 kms to go and the gap to the breakaway is 6 minutes. Everyone is back in the group of those who crashed before, and it looks like Eritrea, Germany and Slovenia are doing all the work in the group, as they should
And there’s another crash with 170 kms left, which involves the leaders of both All-European Team, Sven Fritsch and Odd Christian Eiking. Some more domestiques are in the ground, but no one seems to be badly hurt
Only 3 laps left (60 kms) and the group has been reduced to just 120 riders, and between them, is not anymore 2016 U23 WC, Kasperkiewicz, who must have had a bad day, as he’s dropped together with Per, who might be suffering from his earlier crash. The gap between the breakaway and the peloton is only 3 minutes now
And in the moment we are back in the bunch, we see a rather big crash in the middle of the pack, in the climb of Inadasaka! Eg, O’Connor, Novardianto, Wurtz and Pedersen have crashes, but it’s not like they were favourite for this race anyway.
Huynh attacks in the breakaway when they start the final lap as the bunch is only 45 seconds behind them. And he opens a gap, though All-Europe and Slovenia are working hard in the group behind
13 kms to go and no one does anything, the gap is stable at 45 seconds to Huynh... and Herklotz attacks! Very powerful attack by the German, who is looking to be the first rider since Taylor Phinney in 2011 to win both ITT and RR U23 WC's in the same year. He can create a gap that shouldn’t be easy to bring back
Kudus and Mohoric try to follow the rider of Team Puma, but they are struggling to bridge the gap, and even the group behind is not far, with an amazing McKenna controlling the pace
Herklotz looks smooth with 8 kms left, as neither Kudus or Mohoric have been able to catch him in the descent, and now he might even increase the 12-second gap he has to Kudus in Chome. The group behind, that features sprinters like Ewan or Gaviria is 1 minute behind the German
Kudus has survived the climb of Chome without losing any extra time to Herklotz, so the Eritrean still has a chance to win the race if he can catch Herklotz in the descent and then out-sprinting him, though it’s not an easy task. Mohoric is already 30 seconds behind Kudus, so he’s out of contention for the win, and will have to hope to not be caught by the group to get the Bronze Medal
Amazing mano-a-mano between Kudus and Herklotz. The German still holds a 11-second gap with 3 kms to go, but the Eritrean won’t surrender just yet!
Kudus can’t keep up with Herklotz’s pace and starts to lose some seconds before the final km, so Herklotz gets closer and closer to the World Title...
... and Silvio Herklotz wins for Germany the U23 World Championship!!
Silver medal for Merhawi Kudus and Eritrea. He was close to catch Herklotz during all the last 10 kms, but he couldn’t
And the Bronze medal is for Matej Mohoric and Slovenia. He tried to follow the other two, but didn’t have the legs to do it. Anyway, a bronze medal isn’t a bad result for him
Fritsch beats Mamykin for fourth place, while Ewan does the same with Moscon for sixth. The rest of the Top10 is completed by Carthy, Lopez and McKenna, the latter being probably the rider of the day, having worked for a long time, made the big selection in the group for 4th place and still finish 10th
Silvio Herklotz goes to the podium to get his second Rainbow Jersey of the week, becoming the second rider to win both U23 titles in the same year in the MG era!
