Irishman claims first overall lead of the race
Tuesday 19 May 2015 13:49, UK
Ireland’s Sam Bennett claimed an impressive sprint victory on stage one of Bayern Rundfahrt in Germany.
The 24-year-old Bora-Argon 18 rider proved too fast for runner-up Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and third-placed John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin) at the end of a 221.3km day from Regensburg to Waldsassen.
He becomes the first overall leader of the five-day race and, having also collected 10 bonus seconds, he opens up three-second leads over second-placed Eduard Vorganov (Katusha) and third-placed Jonas Koch (Rad-Net Rose Team), who were both in the day’s breakaway and collected bonus seconds at intermediate sprints.
The victory was Bennett’s second of the season and second at Bayern Rundfahrt, having won the final stage of last year’s race.
The race continues on Thursday with a rolling 179.5km second stage from Waldsassen to Selb.
