Sandy Dujardin (Team TotalEnergies) waited patiently to launch his sprint on the long, 800-metre stretch of road, and proved to have both the timing and the speed to take the victory at the Maryland Cycling Classic.
The Frenchman was part of a tactical breakaway for much of the race, which had whittled down to just seven riders on the last lap.
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How it unfolded
The only UCI ProSeries one-day men’s race in the United States, the Maryland Cycling Classic returned for its third edition on Saturday.
The course started and finished in Baltimore’s harbour, with the start line at Central Plaza and the finish at the Inner Harbor at E. Pratt & Market streets.
The peloton completed a 172.8km across six laps of a 28.8-kilometre circuit that headed north along Faith Road to climb at Greater Roland Pard, and with a mostly downhill run-in to the finish line.
The race was aggressive from the gun, with several groups going clear on the opening lap before a two-rider move was let go. Fabian Weiss (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Oscar Sevilla (Medellin) gained almost six minutes on the second lap before being slowly reeled in.
After the midway point, another high-powered chasing group broke away from the peloton with Alex Baudin, Marijn van den Berg and Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Jonas Abrahamsen and William Levy (Uno-X Mobility), Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla), Oded Kogut (Israel-Premier Tech), Patrick Konrad (Lidl-Trek) and Brandon McNulty and Artem Schmidt (USA), and Wilmar Paredes (Medellin) slowly closing the gap as a light rain began to fall.
On the fourth time up the KOM, Sevilla punctured as the chase group was closing in, and ended up in a second group as the now lone-leader was caught by the splintering first chase.
The skies opened up on the downhill run-in to town and, with only 40 seconds or so between the leaders and the peloton before the rain, the lead group lost and gained some riders on the way back to the Inner Harbour of Baltimore, while the chasing peloton fell further behind, with almost all of the top teams except Lidl-Trek represented.
Jayco-AlUla added two more riders – Filippo Zana and Robert Donaldson. Uno-X Mobility, meanwhile, gained Anders Halland Johannessen, Tudor added Larry Warbasse, Marius Mayrhofer and Hannes Wilksch, Riley Sheehan and Guillaume Boivin (Israel-Premier Tech) replaced Kogut, and Sandy Dujardin (TotalEnergies) made the bridge along with Matyas Kopecky (Novo Nordisk).
Amid the chaos, the sun emerged, the skies cleared, and the rain stopped. The 19-rider lead group had two minutes on a chase of four with the peloton much further behind.
The roads dried out for the penultimate lap, with Donaldson leading the first group over the climb several minutes ahead of a very small chasing peloton.
A small split in the lead group meant the 11 riders started the final circuit just ahead of seven riders who desperately tried to close the gap. But reconnecting just ahead of the cobble sector, the front group orbited the final circuit together.
There were untimely flat tires for Baudin, Kopecky and Powless, but Kopecky was able to make it back up to the front group.
Although neutral support attempted to support Powless, the two wheels they offered were not compatible with his bike. However, with the EF Education-EasyPost team car just 100 metres up the road, Powless picked up his bike and ran the short distance to retrieve a spare team-issued bike in order to continue the race.
Behind the front riders, there were some ones and twos in between the massive six-minute gap to the main peloton.
The pace quickened in the closing kilometres with attacks also coming from Boivin, and reactions from Dujardin, McNulty and Mayrhofer to form a new lead group of four riders.
McNulty attacked with 16km to go, and Dujardin was quick to react, jumping on his wheel, and the pair separated themselves from the others.
Fifteen seconds behind them, Warbasse, Mayrhofer, Abrahamsen, Johannessen, Bovin and Schmid tried to close the gap before the last climb through Greater Roland Park.
Johannesen jumped ahead to try and bridge alone, but was caught over the top, the accelerations causing splits among the chase.
Although McNulty accelerated on the ascent, he could not rid Durjardin from his back wheel, and the gap dropped to just five seconds to chasers Abrahamsen and Schmid, and a few additional seconds to Warbasse, Mayrhofer and Johannessen.
The seven riders descended into the finish line with all to play for in pursuit of victory.
Results
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