Just over 200 km await the riders, have one last look at the list of favourites, as the race is about to begin!
A very small peloton of 106 riders are lucky with the weather today. The sun is shining, let’s see who wants to enjoy that hot sun in the break of the day.
The first attack immediately seems to be the right one! Moricz attacks and brings teammate Pereyra, Lasca and Lopez with him. One third of MOL in the break today! In the peloton, some teams are slowly organizing themselves to start controlling the race.
After the first 25 km the riders leave the Brazilian coast and start going inland. Time gap between the four leaders and the peloton 3’30”. In the peloton, the teams setting the pace are Philips, Sotto il sole di Riccione, Centovalli – Fiat and Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team.
After chilling for a bit more than two hours, it is now time for the riders to head onto the local parcours, of which there are four laps. To get onto that parcours they have to get up this interesting mountain though, which has some hairpin bends one would usually expect in the Alps, but maybe not next to the Brazilian coast. I wonder where the people living here park their cars. The peloton, still led by the same teams, now 4’30” behind while entering the final 100 km.
This is the obstacle the riders have to overcome four times. A very uneven climb with some extremely steep parts. Something like this should be causing havoc in the peloton.
Et voila, as Van Poucke leads the peloton over one of those steeper parts, small gaps are being formed immediately. Ben Nasser, Fabbro, Caruso, Ssabagwanya and last year’s winner Hoelgaard not in an amazing position with 77 km to go.
The four leaders start their second of four climbs of the local mountain/hill with 60 km to go. A peloton of 60 riders is 3’15” behind, the biggest names missing are Ssabagwanya and Hoelgaard.
The pace in the peloton was not too high on their second ascent. Bissegger leads 90+ riders over the finish line for their penultimate lap, an almost complete peloton following our leaders at 3’05” with a bit less than 50 km to the finish line.
Game over for Moricz in the leading group with 31 km to go! It’s three musketeers against the peloton now, where Ecuadorian champion Cepeda Hernandez has been setting the pace in the last couple of km. The time difference still at 2’30” though, is a breakaway victory possible?
All hands on deck in the peloton now, as Juul-Jensen attacks with still 30 km to go! Still several domestiques of favourite’s teams behind him, what can the Dane do?
Damn, Cepeda Hernandez is strong today. He reels the Carlsberg rider back in rather quickly. Because of this attack the time difference to the three leaders has been reduced to 1’30” though.
While entering the final lap and with 25 km to go, that gap has even been reduced to only a minute. Behind the three leaders a peloton of 50 riders have formed, with the most important riders not in that group being Smirnovs and Ssabagwanya.
Lopez still believes in a stunt, he leaves the other two leaders behind with 23 km to go!
His attack doesn’t bring him very far though. 15 km to go as our three leaders have a 30” gap over the peloton, which is being led by several Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team domestiques! Everything to be decided on the final climb(s)!
The Gjensidige boys do what they were hired for. The breakaway has been caught, and there are exactly 10 km to the finish line!
9 km left and on the first out of three steep parts it’s Zaini who opens the debates! Behind him we see Moscon, Ginanni, Quevedo and Juul-Jensen!
Jung and Kelderman also follow them, but so far the Gjensidige domestiques are hanging on valiantly and keeping the peloton more or less together! 7.5 km left as we head onto the penultimate steep part of the finale!
Zaini has understood his attack is leading nowhere, and nobody else takes over! Strong work by Ziesler, who would have expected a peloton of 55 riders at only 7 km to the finish line?!
Juul-Jensen attacks for the second time today! This attack might prove more fruitful, as there are only 6.5 km left! Kelderman the first to react!
5.5 km to go as the riders are on the last steep parts of the day! Kelderman catches the Carlsberg rider, and behind them we see a small gap over five other riders: Zaini, Ziesler, Eiking, Moscon and Ginanni!
But at the end of that steep part, it all just comes back together again! Eiking believes it’s his moment to shine and attacks under the banner of the last 5 km! Moscon following the Gjensidige rider!
But Kelderman is paying attention and neutralizes the threat! A group of fifteen reaches the top of the penultimate hill, with the rest of the peloton right behind them. Now there is a 3 km descent, with the final km being slightly uphill! It seems we are going to see a bunch sprint!
Or maybe not! Seibeb with an attack out of nowhere! We haven’t seen the Project: Africa rider all day, but now he tries to surprise everyone with a late attack, just as he did recently in South Africa as well! It seems to be working, as all favourites are looking at one another and trail by 20” going into the final 3 km!
2 km left! The peloton not gaining time, as the difference is still twenty seconds!
Seibeb under the flamme rouge now, and the gap over the twenty-four riders behind him is exactly 20”!
700 meters to go! The peloton has come exactly one second closer!
Lienhard starts sprinting in the peloton, while Seibeb is 400 meters away from South American glory! Time difference now fifteen seconds!
Final 300 meters and Lienhard has reduced the gap to twelve seconds! What a surprise winner he would be! The last parts are at a gradient of 3.5%!
The Swiss has overestimated himself and needs to sit down! Juul-Jensen and Kelderman now both on a different side of the road, but Seibeb still has a gap in the last 150 meters!
Juul-Jensen and Kelderman on the verge of overtaking the Namibian, but only 100 meters left!
The Dane reaching the wheel of Seibeb!
But he just comes short! What a thrilling finale and a spectacular win for Seibeb! Juul-Jensen wins silver ahead of Kelderman!
Fourth place goes to Quevedo ahead of a surprising Lindau in fifth. The other top-10 spots are for Kunshin (6th), Moscon (7th), Tsatevich (8th), Fabbro (9th) and Roux (10th). Some surprising names indeed, with some of the lower MGUCI points then going to Ginanni (11th), Jung (12th), Dieteren (13th), last year’s winner Hoelgaard (14th) and Mudarra (15th).
