Dutch rider Julius Van den Berg (VIKING Waterland Wielerteam) have won the 26th edition of La Coupe du Président de la Ville de Grudziadz. Alan Banaszek from Poland was second and Maxim Stalikov from Kazakhstan National Team was third.
After two stages during the first day of racing we had 85.2km long stage around Chełmża next day which ended with 11 men group sprint won by Anton Ivashkin from Belarus. Itamar Einhorn from Israel was second and Polish sprinter Alan Banaszek finished third. Both Jorgensen and Pedersen didin't manage to finish in the front group so the leader's jersey went back to RCS Cottbus team's Jasper Frahm.
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| Einhorn and Banaszek at the finish line in Chełmża (photo: pzkol) |
Stage three around Świecie ended with successful breakaway by future race winner, Julius Van den Berg. He finished seven seconds ahead of the bunch but that was more then enough to become the new race leader. Kamil Turek from Poland won the bunch sprint with Dzimitry Zhyhunou from Belarus finishing third.
The final stage in Grudziadz won Alan Banaszek who collected impressive amount of bonus seconds (10 on the line and seven more during the stage) which gave him second place in overall. Louis Rohde from Germany finished second and Dutch rider Jorn Bunning was third. Van den Berg finished safely in the bunch and defended his overall lead.
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| Alan Banaszek winning the final stage |
Full results:
Wyścig Kolarski o Puchar Prezydenta Grudziądza (original polish name for the race) is being pretty impressive event for juniors. Maybe the field is not as good as in 2.1 races in Belgium or France but it's still getting more attention and might be considered as important part of the calendar and good preparation for Course de la Paix. Few years back the gc was outbalanced by polish riders with some guests from Eastern Europe mostly and Germany. Now we had proper number of team all around Europe (wtih Israel also).
Julius Van den Berg had two wins already this season heading into Grudziadz so he's win can't be considered as a total surprise. Also worth to mention that Polish sprinter Alan Banaszek is from 1997 and i would love to see him in some bigger events for juniors to see what can he achive against the big guys like Halvorsen and Wauters.
You can find more photo's and video's from the race on the official website: www.alksstal.org
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