Welcome to Sweden! Let's take a last second look at the route and favourites before get into the transition!
Interesting designation of the favourites today with Rickaert being touted as the one to watch, are they not expecting a bunch sprint?
It is a rainy day here in Sweden, it’s time for the Uppsala Classic!
We have barely left the start line before we have the first wave of attacks launched by Urcelay, Drouin, Loland, Polanco, Martinelli, Adriamihajanarivo and Blanca Pareja.
A few more riders try their best to join the front group in Skjerping and Ruiz. The overall gap to the pack is a little over a minute and with this being a circuit race I doubt that they will get a ton of time today!
With 42kms to go nothing significant has happened at all. The biggest the gap got to was 5 minutes it currently sits at 1’20” as the pack is starting claw its way into the backend of the race. It is all about positioning as the pack sometimes ripples a little bit as the pace has been increased in front.
One of those gaps can be seen created here briefly as Rickaert is the biggest name that has to putt in a bit of effort to not be distanced.
While there is very little wind the circuit is incredibly technical and there is no part of it there’s 0% incline it’s always going slightly up or down.
With 16kms to go the break is still out front the tricky nature of the course means that they’re struggling to reel them in at the moment and their gap hasn’t rocked a bit for the moment. Veyhe decides to take matters into his own hands a consequence of this.
With 6kms to go Veyhe has 15 seconds to the pack but he still has to bridge a 41 second gap to the front group that’s still working together. This could be an absolute peach for Gjensidige as the only team with 2 riders out there.
Let’s rehash who’s in the break group: Polanco, Ruiz, Skjerping & Loland, Blanca Pareja, Drouin, Martinelli, Adriamihajanarivo, Urcelay.
In the pack it’s the joined efforts of Tafjord, Fresh Cement, Würth and Strava that has to make this catch but they’re running out of road!
2kms to go and Veyhe’s efforts are futile as he’s brought back. The pack is still 45 seconds behind. We’re going to see a very surprising winner today!
Habtom can see the break opening their sprint under the red kite with Skjerping going first!
As the cameras move to the break, we can see that Loland is currently in second position with Drouin third. The thing is no one in the break are amazing sprinters. There might still be hope for the pack if they get up to speed in time!
Skjerping fades but his teammate is still in with a shot. In the meantime Polanco has reached top speed with Ruiz trying to find the gap and sneak past Loland!
And it’s an incredibly surprising victory here for Polanco, it might even be the first Dominican win in MG history?
This is also a huge result for Filipino cycling as Blanca Pareja takes home second place, Loland takes third. Ruiz fades out to fourth as Drouin completes the top 5.
Wippert is the superior sprinter in the pack, unfortunately it’s just for a 10th place.
Thanks for tuning into a surprising edition of the Uppsala Classic, sometimes the teams misjudge how much time they can give the break on a technical course like this! Full Results:
