Cycling: John Degenkolb from Team Giant-Alpecin won the 5th and final stage of the Bayern Tour. The 26-year-old won the sprint after the 196,7 km from Haßfurt to Nuremberg after the field of participants had to complete the circuit through Nuremberg's old town 11 times. Second was Rüdiger Selig by Katusha. Alex Dowsett secured after his extremely strong performance at yesterday's individual time trial the overall victory.
What a conclusion for this year's Bayern Rundfahrt. After less than 10 kilometers, a sextet was able to break away from the main field and within a few minutes they had a considerable lead. In the field, Movistar dictated the pace, but the effort to catch the leading group was limited. For a long time the gap between the top sextet and the peloton was between two and three minutes - even when turning onto the final circuit in Nuremberg's old town, the lead was still quite considerable.
It was then, however, that Bora-Argon 18 and Giant-Alpecin joined Movistar at the front of the field – the Spanish team working for their leader Alex Dowsett, of course. With each of the eleven laps to be mastered in the Franconian metropolis, the lead of the leading group melted until it began to fall apart in the eighth lap - they had left too much power up to this point and the pace of the field was too high at the end. When the field, which had been reunited, turned into the last kilometers, the time of the sprint trains, which had already been used a few times this year at the Bayern Rundfahrt, struck again. Again, especially Giant-Alpecin around John Degenkolb and Bora-Argon 18 with their sprint expert Sam Bennett did the best work - finally John Degenkolb prevailed in the sprint for the second time this year - his toughest adversary, Sam Bennett from Bora-Argon 18, finished third. Rüdiger Selig von Katusha squeezed in between the two decisive sprinters of this tour.
The overall winner is the hour record holder Alex Dowsett - after driving the competition to the ground in the individual time trial yesterday, he already started the race as a favorite and, thanks to the great work of his team, confidently bagged the overall victory. The blue jersey for the best sprinter goes to John Degenkolb, the mountain classification wins Louis Meintjes from MTB-Qhubeka.
Final result Bayern Rundfahrt, 5th stage
[easy table th=“0″]1st,John Degenkolb,GER,Giant Alpecin
2.,Rüdiger Selig,GER,Katusha
3th,Sam Bennett,IRL,Bora-Argon 18th
4., Dylan Groenewegen, NED, Roompot
5th, Michael Carbel Svengaard, DEN, Cult Energy
[/easy table]Appreciation Bayern Tour
[easy table th=“0″]1.,Alex Dowsett,GBr,Movistar,
2.,Tiago Machado,POR,Katusha,00:00:02
3.,Jan Barta,CZE,Bora-Argon 18,00:00:18
4.,Ramunas Navardauskas,LIT,Cannondale-Garmin,00:00:22
5.,Dylan van Baarle,NED,Cannondale-Garmin,00:00:31
[/easy table]