Australian takes his first stage race in two years as Team Sky controls the final day
A sprint finish at the end of the fifth and final stage of the Bayern-Rundfahrt, between Feuchtwangen and Bamberg, meant that race leader Michael Rogers (Team Sky) was able to secure the overall victory. The 167km stage was taken by Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD), with his third victory in the race; the Italian had also taken stages one and three and, with Rogers winning two and four, nobody else got a look in as they alternated victories.
Second behind Petacchi – as he had been on stage one – was Australian Allan Davis (Orica-GreenEdge), ahead of André Schulze (Team NetApp), but the day belonged to Rogers.
“It was a relatively calm stage,” said the Australian afterwards. “Three guys went away pretty early and the boys did their usual thing to work to pull it back for a bunch sprint. It’s great to get the wins here. I haven’t won a field race like on Thursday since 2006. That was a relief but wherever you win it’s always nice.”
Victory in the race is Rogers’ first since winning the 2010 Tour of California, almost exactly two years to the day before.
“I don’t feel like I’m at my peak yet,” he explained. “I’ve pretty much come straight off a heavy training camp with a few days’ rest. It’s quite exciting times if we can achieve results like this coming off the back of quite an intense camp. I think that’s a sign of the team’s strength. I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing more of Team Sky riding on the front.
“Having been professional for 12 years I’ve been part of some big and successful teams but it’s really nice when everyone’s riding well across the board. It means the morale of the team snowballs. Everyone is performing well and laughing and smiling. The further I go in cycling I realise that these are the moments that you really treasure.”
The day’s three fugitives were Karsten Kroon (Saxo-Bank), Cedric Pineau (FDJ-Big Mat) and Maximilian Werda (Thüringer Energie). Although they managed to open a lead of up to five minutes over the field, Team Sky kept them under control and was happy to let them swallow up the bonus seconds, and keep them from Rogers’ rivals.
Finally, the time came to bring them back however and, with 20km to go, the sprinters’ teams came forward to help Team Sky. Werda was the first to surrender, with just seven kilometres to go, with the other two following shortly afterwards. As he had been twice before in the race, Petacchi was the fastest man on the line.