Welcome to all. Last season this race ended in a victory for the late attacker(s). Several of the teams here won’t mind a repeat of that scenario.
The first breakaway attempt seems to be the good one. A lot of youngsters present in the group of 13: Jurado, Rivera, Croes, Blouwe, Van Tricht, Andersen, Johannessen, Froidevaux, Chaiyasombat, Hecht, Morales Ortega, Wibisono and Yudha.
With 100 km to the finish line the maximum gap of 4’45” had been reduced to 2’30”. The teams doing most of the chasing work are Trans, Cedevita, Gjensidige, Aramco and Eddie Stobart.
And with 50 km left the gap is down to 1’30”. Pas Normal, HelloFresh and Aker now helping in the peloton, with still several riders in the leading group not having done any of the work so far.
As there are 35 km to go, every rider in the leading group tries to attack and gain some ground over the rest of the field, but none of the accelerations work out. Johannessen had 20” over the others for a while, but with 20 km to go it is now Froidevaux who has a small gap over the chasers, with the peloton only a few additional seconds behind.
As the attacks from the breakaway group keep on coming, they don’t get caught too quickly. Jurado, Hecht, Van Tricht, Yudha and Morales Ortega now on the verge of being caught by the peloton with 12 km to the finish line, on one of the final uphill sectors of the race. What follows now is a quick descent and ascent, another descent, and then a small uphill sector to the final straight line!
9 km remaining! The peloton is close to catching last survivor Jurado, as the top sprinters and rouleurs seem to be where they have to be!
But the pace seems to be too high for the rouleurs to attack! Sprinter teams Aramco, Trans and Gjensidige in the lead with 4 k to go!
We’re on that final uphill sector with 2 km to go, as the Gjensidige lead-out of Ji and Bauhaus seems to be the strongest so far! Their leader Appollonio not directly in their wheel though!
But under the Flamme rouge it’s the sprinters of Trans, Aramco and HelloFresh positioned best with still one helper ahead of them! Other sprinters in decent positions on the slightly downhill finish are Suryadi, Marin, Vanderbiest, Appollonio and Nelson!
And everybody gets released! Suryadi leading the race with 600 meters to go!
The Indosat rider still in the lead with 400 meters to go after the corner to the right, but Kump and a surprising Bauhaus right behind him!
And here comes Selig with an acceleration through the middle! 300 meters to go!
Kump in the lead with 200 metres left, but the German from Trans clearly going faster!
Appollonio, Nelson and Marin also coming with a strong final kick it seems, but it will be hard for anyone to still beat Selig now!
And the German wins indeed! Great win for Trans, with Appollonio (2nd) and Nelson (3rd) on the podium as well!
Kump holds on for fourth, with the others right behind him being Jakobsen (5th), Marin (6th), Redecker (7th), Suryadi (8th), Vanderbiest (9th), Ovsyannikov (10th), Bauhaus (11th), Naesen (12th) and rouleur Katrasnik (13th).
