Not a mass sprint, but a win from a breakaway group: Sören Kragh Andersen won the Eschborn-Frankfurt cycle race on May 1st on Monday.
Soren Kragh Andersen won the Frankfurt cycle race. After an exciting race, the Dane prevailed in the final sprint of a breakaway group. Austria’s Patrick Konrad came in second, Alessandro Fedeli from Italy was third.
The best German was Georg Steinhauser in sixth place, followed by Georg Zimmermann in seventh place. Local hero John Degenkolb crossed the finish line after 204 kilometers with the field a few seconds behind the leading group. “I really suffered today,” said the man from Oberursel. “The character of the race is already different from the last few years. The mountains were really long and I was really dead.”
New route makes the race difficult
Previously, the new route with two trips over the Feldberg and 3,000 meters in altitude made for a much more exciting course of the race. After a leading group formed around the German Max Walscheid, the actual race began around 90 kilometers before the end at the second Feldberg crossing.
The field split up on the long climb, suddenly Michael Matthews was the only sprinter left in the first group. In the second group, about a minute behind, there were three fast men: Arnaud de Lie, Degenkolb and Alexander Kristoff. And so a small team time trial ensued between Matthew’s team Jayco and the chasing teams.
The decision is made at the Mammolshainer
The groups were reunited until the last Mammolshainer crossing, but the altitude had obviously taken its toll. Because at the steep sting in the Taunus, the sprinters could no longer keep up with the next start. So it came to the 2.3 kilometers near Königstein to the decisive selection.
A group of ten, including the two Germans Steinhauser and Zimmermann, pulled away and harmonized well over the following kilometers. In the exciting final phase, the field fought its way up to 15 seconds. But it wasn’t enough to merge. So for the first time in years there was no big sprint finish in Frankfurt.
