German rider, Ole Quast led the field after the start.
Germany’s national champion, Sascha Weber arrived to the top of the first big climb’s top first in the first lap.
Near the end of the first lap, soon-to-be-winner Robert Gavenda (46) and previous junior World Champ and World Cup winner, Tijmen Eising (27), who is spending his first year in U23.
Funny, how much bigger Michael Schweizer looked than Dutch rider, Lars Van Der Haar.
Gavenda (46) started to pull away from the rest of the field and Belgian Tom Meeusen (11) seemed to be able to keep up with him.
Gavenda runs up the hill.
And Meeusen follows closely.
By the penultimate lap, Meeusen wasn’t able to keep up with pace Gavenda and Petrus dictated.
At the beginning of the last lap, Petrus had an insignificant lead on Gavenda, so final sprint appeared to be the most realistic end-game.
Cristian Cominelli (22) was chasing Arnaud Grand (43) for the bronze in the third lap.
The race ended with a final sprint indeed and Gavenda was the one who could celebrate, though as you can see, he didn’t beat Petrus with a huge margin.
Eising finished 15th in his first U23 year, will see how he performs during the rest of the season.
Petrus didn’t seem to be delighted – no wonder, he was defeated by less then a second.
Gavenda has it all: the gold and the girl.
Well, almost everything, the organizers managed to erect the Slovakian flag upside down.
