Terpstra wins Sparkassen Giro

Dutch champion Niki Terpstra (Team Milram) claimed a solo victory at the Sparkassen Giro. Terpstra attacked on the final climb to take a solo victory, with a margin of just 10 seconds over the six remaining breakaway riders that crossed the line together.

After winning the Tour of Poland’s final stage a day earlier André Greipel (Team HTC – Columbia) didn’t have the legs to match Canadian Guillaume Boivin (Spidertech-Planet Energy) in the sprint for second place. Robert Retschke (Continental Team Differdange) dropped out of the lead group on the final climb, finishing a further five seconds behind in eighth place.

“That was a great performance by our team,” said Team Milram directeur sportif Jochen Hahn. “We wanted to make the race hard from the very beginning, since we had no classic sprinter with us, and also had great respect for the fast riders in the field, like Andre Greipel.

“Our two stagiaires Stefan Schäfer and Michael Weicht were very good today and were a great support for the team,” he added. “And then Niki Terpstra was our man for the finale, he attacked at the right moment and crowned our team's work with a victory. Everything went exactly as we had planned.”

Milram had kicked off the attacks early on with Australia’s Luke Roberts one of the first to go. Roberts moved ahead of the peloton with HTC-Columbia’s Tony Martin, before being caught by the peloton.

The race splintered 120 kilometres in, with a group of 40 moving ahead of the peloton. That group was narrowed down to eight as Terpstra started to show his cards with an attack at 20 kilometres remaining.

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