Alexander Kristoff takes fourth victory in a row at Eschborn-Frankfurt
May 01 2018 11:31 pm CET
Photo of Alexander Kristoff (c) UAE Team Emirates
Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) has won Eschborn-Frankfurt. This is the fourth victory in a row for the Norwegian in the German race.
The 212-kilometre race started with a few attacks that were repelled by the peloton. A first escape group was then formed and included riders like Daniel Teklehaimanot (Cofidis), Aaron Gate (Aqua Blue Sport) and Yukiya Arashiro (Bahrain-Merida) and though they created a gap of more than four minutes, they were eventually reeled back in due to the climbs and a motivated peloton pulled by teams like Katusha-Alpecin and UAE Team Emirates.
The speed of the peloton also left candidates like Marcel Kittel and Rick Zabel (Katusha-Alpecin) struggling at the back. At around 50 kilometres to go, a new group was formed by riders like Nils Pollit (Katusha-Alpecin), Laurens De Plus (Quick-Step Floors), Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-hansgrohe).
Some kilometres later, Sunweb's Michael Matthews attacked from the peloton and created a group of chasers that increased the pace to hunt for the front group. The speed set by Quick-Step in the peloton allowed them to catch the chasers and considerably reduce the gap with the escapees.
With around 3 kilometres remaining, the peloton caught the escapees that still survived from the peloton. One of the candidates of the day, Quick-Step Floors' Fernando Gaviria, launched his sprint too soon and quickly ran out of strength to continue. Sam Bennett (Bora-hansgrohe) took the lead and Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) remained at his wheel and showed to have strong enough legs to beat the competition.
This is the fourth victory in a row for the Norwegian. Matthews crossed the finish line second and Belgian champion Oliver Naesen (AG2R-La Mondiale) was third.
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