The Great Ocean Road Classic is about to begin and it's a windy day here in Down Under: crosswinds between 60-65kmh at the start of race, some roleurs will surely fancy their chances now. Kluge probably as the most complete roleur, who should be considered a real threat for those top sprinters here. Guarnieri though as still the clear favorite (since he's a strong roleur himself): can anyone fool the overwhelming top favorite today?
The peloton shut down the first few breakaway attempts:
Eventually, it's only rider going clear for the break of the day - a long day for:
Schinnagel
The solo leader build a lead up to six minutes, with the peloton then starting to chase with crosswinds now blowing between 45-60kmh.. 44km before the finish, Schinnagel leads by 2'50" and we see the next attack from the peloton:
Magnusson goes clear and tries to bridge across the solo leader!
The wind goes up to almost 70kmh now - add to that some rain and we have quite challenging weather conditions here: 30km to go for the peloton, that is still 1'30" behind Schinnagel (and Magnusson has not yet caught up to the solo leader)..
..two more riders try to break clear from the peloton, where Delvaux and Cerveceria are leading the chase:
Zhupa and Matsumoto!
Hacecký and Rothaus joining Delvaux/Cerveceria to finally catch the escapees: Zhupa/Matsumoto could not stay clear, but Schinnagel and Magnusson are 51 seconds ahead with 18km remaining. Magnusson still hasn't finally closed the gap, but he's not far behind Schinnagel.
The current pace (and still heavy crosswinds) led to a major split in the pack, where only 54 riders are left in the first group..
Salleh as one of the latest riders being dropped! Surely bad news for his team, since he's been rated as one of the most promising sprinters today..
..some more notable names could not hang on anymore and won't make it back to the main group:
Schinnagel went for another acceleration once Magnusson finally closed the gap! The young German would open up quite a big gap that way and Magnusson does not look like he would counter this move with now just 8.5km to go for Schinnagel..
..and what's even better news (for the solo leader): the peloton gave up chasing as well! Schinnagel's advantage grows back to 2 minutes!
Delvaux and Rothaus still setting the pace at the front of the reduced peloton, but they are not spending too much energy anymore with the two escapees rather easily increasing the gap in a very short time! That's obviously bad news from a neutral point of view and also Guarnieri and those others sprinters in the main peloton won't be happy to just fight for a 3rd place soon..
Schinnagel takes the Great Ocean Classic from a solo breakaway attempt! Certainly an unexpected win and also quite a strange behaviour of the peloton eventually.. the young German won't care too much though and of course it's a nice victory for him and his team.
Magnusson comes in as 2nd with 55 seconds lost on Schinnagel. A rather surprising result between those two, but Magnusson apparently spent too much energy with his efforts to bridge across Schinnagel in a rather short time (with crosswinds and stuff).. still a podium, that comes pretty much out of nowhere!
Two minutes later, the reduced peloton enters the final 2km of the race - the battle for 3rd place is on:
Guarnieri would not wait for a proper sprint preparation and there's no sprint trains anyway. The top favorite kicks off his sprint early and he quickly opens up a huge gap on the other riders in the group!
Who's in the mix as well?
Kluge launching his sprint from the leading position..
Vanoverschelde King Colbrelli Van Heerden Markus Vanderaerden Breen Feillu Cimolai Manninen Pibernik Nizzolo Carsi Haas Reza on the further positions..
Matsumoto and Kireva are joining the mix close to the flamme rouge!
Guarnieri easily sprinting towards a podium result and then it's still Kluge ahead of Vanoverschelde and Colbrelli/Breen, Van Heerden, Pibernik, Vanderaerden and King!
Guarnieri takes an easy 3rd place, but he won't be happy to see two escapees finishing ahead of him.. obviously no easy conditions today, but the peloton at least looked in control for quite a while..
Kluge now losing speed and Vanoverschelde goes past him on the final few hundred metres!
Also Colbrelli, Van Heerden and Vanderaerden are coming closer, with Breen and Pibernik struggling to keep their pace! Matsumoto and Kireva ahead of Markus, other sprinters like Manninen, Carsi or Matthews can't make up ground anymore..
Vanoverschelde finishes as a narrow 4th ahead of Vanderaerden!
Van Heerden lungs in for 6th ahead of Colbrelli and Kluge! A good team result for Cerveceria, even though they can't be happy with their failure neither..
Breen adds a strong 9th place for Delvaux then..
Pibernik completes the Top-10 with a strong effort in this bunch sprint! Also Matsumoto (11th) and Kireva (12th) should be happy with their results here, finishing ahead of Markus/Hacecky and Quintero..
