Deutschland Tour: Hodeg wins opening stage

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The Deutschland Tour returned on Thursday after a 10-year absence, and Colombian Alvaro Hodeg (Quick-Step Floors) denied the prospect of a home winner for the first stage of the new era as he pipped German champion Pascal Ackerman (Bora-Hansgrohe) in a tight bunch sprint in Bonn.

In-form Ackermann had a perfect lead-out in the long final straight and appeared to be on his way to a fifth victory of the summer, but Hodeg, who started his sprint in fourth place, came roaring up on the right-hand side to snatch it by a tyre’s width.

Niccolo Bonifazio (Bahrain-Merida) finished third, with Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg (Dimension Data) fourth. Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) finished sixth, while fellow German sprint star Marcel Kittel (Katusha-Alpecin) did not figure, continuing his miserable 2018 campaign.

Hodeg leads the race overall going into Friday’s stage 2.

How it unfolded

The opening day of racing at the revived Deutschland Tour took the riders 157km from Koblenz to Bonn and, with just one categorised climb on the menu, it was always likely to come down to a bunch sprint - perhaps the only one of the four-day race.

A six-man breakaway went up the road in the early kilometres, containing Jorge Arcas (Movistar), Kevin Van Melsen (Wanty Groupe Gobert), Benoit Jarrier (Fortuneo-Samsic), Jens Reynders (Leopard Pro Cycling), Sven Reutter (Heizomat - Rad Net), and Dorian Lübbers (Lotto - Kern Haus).

They built up a lead of around 2:30 but never more, as Bora, Lotto Soudal, and Quick-Step marshalled the peloton. Reutter won both intermediate sprints, the first coming 25km from the start and the second 50km from the finish, while Jarrier took the KOM points at the sole climb 40km from the line.

As introduced to the Tour de France this year, there is a bonus sprint in the finale offering times bonuses of three, two, and one seconds for the first three, and here it was Reynders who took it from Arcas and Van Melsen. By that point, with less than 20km to go, the break was down to just three riders, Ruetter and Lubbers being the first to go, while Jarrier fell away soon after the climb.

With the gap to the trio just 30 seconds, Oscar Riesebeek (Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij) attacked from bunch with Juri Hollmann (Heizomat Rad-Net) and, after Arcas was briefly dropped, made it up to form a group of five. They were caught with 13.5km to go as Sky came to the front.

After a few kilometres Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas, their nominal leader, hit the front, and it turned out he was paving the way for an attack from fellow Welshman Luke Rowe, who opened a small gap but was caught in the town centre with just over 5km to go.

Bora then came to the front and took control. They came through a nasty 180-degree roundabout turn well positioned, sweeping up an opportunistic attack from another Heizomat rider, and kept pole position through to the final few hundred metres, Ackermann tucked in behind lead-out man Rudiger Selig. The German opened up and could almost taste victory, but Hodeg came storming up to trade another blow in that intriguing late-summer sprint rivalry.

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