Thomas Wins The Bayern Rundfahrt

Last updated : 01 June 2014 By Covsupport News Service

Geraint Thomas of Team Sky has won the Bayern Rundfahrt.

Thomas had taken the time trial in Wassrertrudingen which was the start of this final 159.6km stage to Nuremberg.

There were no breaks in the peloton as Romain Bardet of AG2R took the first climb of the day inside the first fifteen kilometres.

Bardet decided to go on a solo ride which the peloton of about eighty riders, soon brought him back to heel.

Emmanuel Buchmann of Buchmann took the second climb after getting into a break with Roulston, Gastauer, Brutt, Venter, Schorn, Langeveld, Jarrier & Garcia and after 29kms, they had a lead of 1.02 and 1.30 after 61kms.

Then came the first sprint of the day which saw AG2R's Ben Gastauer nip away to take the full points.  Gastauer took the second sprint as well as the escapers extended their lead to 2.55.

With 28.5kms to go, the gap was down to 28 seconds and it was no surprised that the break was neutralised with 20.6kms left.

There were plenty of attacks but nothing succeeded.until Jens Voigt of Trek Factory Racing went on a raid with Sepulveda and took sixteen seconds ahead of a Team Net App led peloton.

Into the final ten kilometres of the race and, Voigt and Sepulveda were 27 seconds ahead but back came the peloton and with 6.6kms left, Voigt and Sepulveda were caught.

The sprint was on and Ireland's Sam Bennett of Team Net App was first over the line to take the win ahead of Hutarovich, Kreder, Porsev, Bauhaus, Haussler, Stauff, Arndt, Vigano and Thomel.

Geraint Thomas finished safely to take the overall victory by nineteen seconds from Mathias Frank with Christian Maier of Orica GreenEdge taking the King Of The Mountains competition.

Gabrial Rasch in his first race as a Sports Director sad about Thomas' win to the Team Sky website: "It wasn't a bad start as a DS was it! "It's been a good week and I've learned a lot. I've really enjoyed it.

"Today was a pretty hard day. Those early attacks meant we had to do a lot of work this morning and everybody played their part. Once the break went Ian [Boswell] and Christian [Knees] kept a close eye on them.

"The sprint teams helped us out at the end, but we needed Luke [Rowe] to do some work which meant he couldn't go for the sprint.

"Everything went to plan though and we're really happy. As well a G winning, it was great to see Kiry take third, and Pete [Kennaugh] and Christian in the top 15 because it shows our strength in depth.

"Those guys are all trying to get in contention for a Tour de France ride, and they've been really impressive this week - everyone has."