Sam Bennett finished third in the Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt today, an important race for his German Bora-Argon 18 team with Norwegian rider Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) taking the win.
Bora-Argon 18 did much of the work today to ensure the leading 6-man breakaway were never given too much leeway and along with Katusha also helped to ensure that a subsequent attack by Tony Martin (Etixx-Quick Step) didn’t pan out.
Bennett’s team-mates Dominik Nerz, Paul Voss and Emanuel Buchmann worked for the Irish sprinter in the closing kilometres, but Kristoff proved too strong, taking the win ahead of Maximiliano Richeze (Etixx-Quick-Step) and Bennett.
“We tried to support Sam (Bennett) today from the beginning, but we lost two riders pretty early in the race, Directeur Sportif Enrico Poitschke said afterwards. “Because the group then also was strongly held, we had to work earlier than expected, which did cost also a lot of energy.”
“But the team did a great job today. We achieved our goal to bring Sam into the final loops in a good position, with Dominik (Nerz), Paul (Voss) and Emu (Buchmann) still there to support him.”
“Maybe it was a little mistake that Sam was not directly on the wheel of Kristoff in the sprint, but a podium here in Frankfurt is a strong result. Of course we would have loved to take the win in front of our home crowd, but we also really enjoyed that a lot of fans celebrated German cycling today again.”
Results
1 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Team Katusha 5:00:02
2 Maximiliano Ariel Richeze (Arg) Etixx – Quick-Step
3 Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora-Argon 18
4 Pieter Vanspeybrouck (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise
5 Yves Lampaert (Bel) Etixx – Quick-Step
6 Tom Devriendt (Bel) Wanty – Groupe Gobert
7 Pawel Franczak (Pol) Veranclassic-Ago
8 Maurits Lammertink (Ned) Roompot – Oranje Peloton
9 Bartlomiej Matysiak (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
10 Fabian Wegmann (Ger) Stˆlting Service Group
