Welcome to the Classique du Grand-Duché! 162 riders have gathered in Luxembourg, including last year’s winner Peter Sagan! While most of the climbers are in France at the moment, Isostar – Specialized has decided to send Phinney here. The riders are at the start, the race is about the begin!
Goldstein, Vermote, Wohler, Senechal and Martinez form the early breakaway.
After a chase of almost 30 km four more riders join the five leaders; Markus, Sweeck, Gamper and Lecourt De Billot. The peloton is 2’40” behind with De Buyst between them which would give us 10 leaders. He’s still 45” behind though.
Great effort by the Belgian who quicky closes the gap and makes it two at the front for Generali. 10 leaders with 175 km to go.
At 150 km from the finish line the rider start the hilly part of today’s race. Six domestiques have been doing the work in the peloton so far, those are Kiriakidis, Dzamastagic, van der Hoorn, Armenian champion Darbinyan, Hnik and Stannard. The leaders have an advantage of 6’.
The leaders enter the last 100 km with a lead of just under four minutes. In the peloton the same teams are still organizing the chase.
Markus and Vermote seemed to be struggling a lot on the uphill sectors, but managed to stay with the other leaders so far, as we have advanced another 25 km. The peloton has cut the lead by one minute, which leaves three minutes for the chase at the moment. Nobody has been dropped in the peloton so far.
Moser – Sygic now trying to up the pace for their leader and last year’s winner Peter Sagan! This has led to around fifty riders being dropped in the peloton. Some interesting riders were not paying attention and are in trouble now, including Phinney, Le Roux and Zakarin!
With 50 km to go and the hardest part starting soon, the leaders are still together and have a lead of 2’45”.
The riders enter the last 40 km and the peloton now consists out of 65 riders, with Phinney and Le Roux back in the pack!
Markus is out of energy at 34 km from the finish line and immediately gets caught by the peloton. The other nine leaders still trying to make something out of it, with an attack from Goldstein now being answered by Senechal and Martinez! Le Roux being reported back in the peloton, but he has to gain some positions fast if he doesn’t want to be chasing again soon!
The idea of Goldstein was decent, the performance a bit less. Just like two other riders from the original breakaway he gets caught by the peloton, which leaves six leaders with 31 km to go; Lecourt De Billot, De Buyst, Vermote, Wohler, Senechal and Martinez.
25 km to go as our six leaders have a lead of 30” on the peloton, where Moser – Sygic is still setting the pace! Only one hard hill left and still 50+ riders in the peloton, will we see a reduced sprint?!
Senechal feeling good and attacking again one km further down the road! De Buyst tried to close the gap but had to sit down, while the peloton loses 15” on the Frenchman!
De Buyst is an experienced rider though, and he catches Senechal quickly on the last real hill of the day. The peloton, led by Mas, is 50” behind.
In no time the Spaniard goes to the head of the race, great work! 21 km to go and we’re nearing the top of the final hill!
It’s last year’s winner Peter Sagan who attacks just before we reach the summit! The other favourites De Bie, Lutsenko and Lopez trying to follow him!
They succeed and so do three other riders! Formolo, Buchmann and Koretzky makes it seven leader with 17 km to go!
Oomen comes back and so do 19 other riders, including former winner Demare! With 15 km to go the biggest absent names are probable Vogt and Van Stayen, the latter having his leader Lopez at the front of the race though.
Still 27 riders in the leading group as we enter the last 10 km!
At 8 km from the finish there is a last small hill before they enter the uphill sector at the finish itself. Koretzky has no trust in his sprinting capacities and attacks, Lutsenko and Lopez follow him!
They enter the last five km with a decent lead over their first four chasers! The riders trying to catch them are Formolo, De Bie, Sagan and Gerts!
Four more riders trying to do the same thing a few seconds behind the group Formolo, those are; Buchmann, Reichenbach, McCarthy and Serry!
The three leaders enter the last three km and the uphill finish, it looks like one of them will be winning as the chasers are still 20” behind!
Koretzky has done most of the work after attacking and now tries to surprise the other two with a very long sprint. He’s quickly out of energy, though, and gets overtaken by Lutsenko with 2 km left!
Lutsenko still leading with 1 km to go! Koretzky has been caught by the four chasers, and might get caught by the peloton of around fifteen riders just behind them as well!
The national champion from Kazakhstan sits down with 500 m to go, Lopez now in pole position to win the Classique du Grand-Duché!
And that’s exactly what the Colombian from Evonik – ELKO does! He wins the race, as the podium is completed by Lutsenko and Sagan!
Formolo finishes fourth, while Koretzky had a surprisingly good second half of the finish climb and manages to secure a fifth place. De Bie in sixth place.
The top 10 is then completed by Buchmann, Reichenbach, Phinney and Gerts, with De Plus finishing just behind the Dutch rider.
