The Garmin Velothon Berlin came down to the expected bunch sprint finish with Raymond Kreder (Garmin Sharp) being the first rider to cross the line. Sam Bennett (NetApp – Endura) stood on the 2nd step on the podium with Alexander Porsev (Katusha) in 3rd place. Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung rode for Andreas Stauff today with German sprinting to 9th place in the end.
The earlier racing saw 4 riders escape from the peloton but with the pan flat route and a number of sprinters present on the start line would ensure that it all came together for the sprint finish. Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung and Team Katusha would do a large part of the chase work with Songezo Jim in particular spending quite some time on the front.
Rider – Andreas Stauff
The race was pretty easy as the profile was pan flat. We made sure a dangerous break did not go away early in the race and then later on Songezo started chasing. Jay and Gerald brought me into a good position with 800m to go but there were no lead out guys left and Gerald already had to do a lot of hard riding in the last 2km’s.
The pace slowed down a bit in the finale and i got switched and boxed in. I tried to find a gap to get through but i lost some momentum and couldn’t launch my sprint as there was no gap. At least my knee was okay after my crash last week as that was something i was worried about. I had to rest it for a few days this week so i was happy i could still get a top 10 for the team. That unfortunately was only the minimum goal for us today, to get a top 10 but sometimes you are unlucky and it doesn’t always work out as planned.
Nevertheless i am confident heading to the World Ports Classic race next week and i hope to get a better result there.
Race Results
Garmin Velothon Berlin (Germany) – (18 May/UCI 1.1) Team Lineup
Staff: Jens Zemke (Directeur Sportif), Hagen Bernutz (Soigneur), Werner Lenk (Mechanic)
