The Irishman, who already caught attention at the Tour du Rwanda with his third place in GC, finished a strong sixth on Sunday! He shook off World Tour riders Eddie Dunbar and Ben Healy on the final climb of the day, putting him in with a chance of a spot on the podium. However, with five kilometres to go, Jesse Ewart's chasers accelerated again and caught up with him. In a real mud battle, he still managed to secure a good top 10 place.
As an individual starter, climber Wesley Mol put in a decent performance in the Netherlands. "It was full gas and one attack after the other all day," Wesley said. After 14 laps and 194 kilometres, he finished the race in 31st place.
Léo Bouvier and Julian Lino also did well in France in their first elite Road Championship against names like Alaphilippe or Démare.
For Dawit Yemane, unfortunately, it was not enough to defend his title in Eritrea. With a top 10 place, however, it was still not a bad race.
In recent years, especially the team captains Lucas Carstensen and Nikodemus Holler were the ones who achieved great results at the German Championships. This year in particular, the team set their goals high and the anticipation was great to race in a German Road Championship that was truly worthy of the name. A long route with all kinds of challenges followed by a mountain top finish. After many temporary solutions in the last few years, the organising team around Heiko Volkert and Jörg Scherf deserves a lot of credit!
Therefore, it is particularly upsetting that Team BIKE AID was not spared from the current surge of Covid infections and was only able to start with a very limited number of riders. Lucas Carstensen is currently recovering from his second Covid infection and Nikodemus Holler has only been able to train in pain since his crash on the final stage of the Tour of Turkey.
In the end, only Jasper Pahlke and Sebastian Niehues were able to start. Although Sebastian crashed, he fought back strongly to finish in 52nd place. Jasper did not finish the race. At least the BIKE AID Devo team was represented with several riders.
Despite the less-than-optimal circumstances, the team is already looking ahead optimistically to next year's German Championships! In addition, the U23 German Championships will be held next week. If Jasper Pahlke has recovered from the exhausting programme of the last three weeks and Enzo Decker is back in shape after being ill, this will be another chance for them.
On Saturday, the team from Saarland will start at the Sibiu Tour (UCI 2.1). Once again, they will face strong competition from the ranks of the World Tour teams!
Pictures by Ronan Caroff
