Cycling: Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) won the 2017 Clasica San Sebastian. The former world champion from Poland rounded off another confident and very strong team performance by the British team with his first success in the Spanish one-day race. Second was Tony Gallopin (Lotto Soudal) ahead of last year's winner Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo).
After an eventful race, like every year, with constant ups and downs and a corresponding number of attacks, the decision was made, as expected, on the last short but all the more challenging climb. The narrow street of Murgil Tontorra was a real endurance test with ramps of up to 20% and pulled the teeth of one or the other previously strong driver.
The decisive advance came from once again extremely strong Mikel Landa (Team Sky), who had already played a decisive role as a noble helper in Chris Froome's tour victory last week. The Spaniard, who was willing to leave, launched a strong attack that only Tony Gallopin and Bauke Mollema could follow. After the trio opened up a small gap, eventual winner Kwiatkowski also broke away with Giro winner Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb).
In this way, Kwiatkowski closed the gap second by second, while Landa worked through the opponents at the front with changing speed delays and attacks. Shortly before the 1000m mark, the top trio became a quintet and Kwiatowski completed the valuable preparatory work of his Spanish teammate. The Pole easily drove past the competition for the first ever Polish victory in the Spanish race. After crossing the finish line, he also knew who to thank: “I am very grateful to the team. At the end you could see how Mikel played his important role perfectly and I was able to go into the sprint quite rested. I thank him for waiting for me up there.”
Tour Locations | Driver | Country | Team | Time |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Michal Kwiatkowski | Poland | TeamSky | 05:52:53 |
2 | Tony gallopin | France | Lotto Soudal | |
3 | Build Mollema | Netherlands | Trek-Segafredo | |
4 | Tom Dumoulin | Netherlands | Sunweb | |
5 | Mikel Landa | Spain | TeamSky | 00:00:02 |
6 | Alberto Bettiol | Italy | Cannondale Drapac | 00:00:28 |
7 | Anthony roux | France | FDJ | 00:00:38 |
8 | greg van avermaet | Belgium | BMC Racing | |
9 | Tiesj Benoot | Belgium | Lotto Soudal | |
10 | Nicholas Roche | Ireland | BMC Racing |
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