Alessandro Petacchi sprinted into an early race lead after claiming victory on stage one at Bayern Rundfahrt.
Italian takes first win of season
Alessandro Petacchi sprinted into an early race lead after claiming victory on stage one at Bayern Rundfahrt.
The experienced Italian (Lampre-ISD) held off Allan Davis (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ-BigMat) on the line into Penzberg to pull on the first leader’s yellow jersey of the race.
The 38-year-old’s Lampre-ISD squad took it up inside the final 10 kilometres and were repaid with a victory at the end of a tough 215.7km test.
Time bonuses on the line elevated Petacchi to a four-second lead at the top of the standings with four stages remaining.
Bavarian opener
In an attacking start it was David Boucher (FDJ-BigMat) who headed up the road after just six kilometres, eventually joined by German trio Alexander Schmitt (Nutrixxion), Jasha Sutterlin (Thuringer Energie) and Steffen Radochla (NSP) ahead of the day’s opening sprint.
The gap to the quartet spun out to almost 15 minutes as the peloton relaxed, the chase eventually taken up by Team Sky as the field approached the main climb of the day.
The gap was slashed to less than five minutes by the summit of the Oberaudorft/Sudelfeld ascent before the British squad dropped back follow a mechanical issue for GC contender Michael Rogers.
Orica-GreenEDGE and Argos-Shimano then moved toward the front as the break were caught at the 40km to go mark on the undulating run-in to Penzberg.
Inevitably new attacks fired off ahead of three laps of the finishing circuit but all were hauled back by a determined Lampre to set Petacchi up for his first win of the season.
