Greipel wins German national road title

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Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol) successfully defended his German national road race title, winning the bunch sprint by half a bike length over John Degenkolb (Giant-Shimano). Third place went to 19-year-old Phil Bauhaus of Team Stölting.

"I am very, very happy," Greipel said after the race. "The race was not easy, you couldn't really relax. Marcel Sieberg once again prepared the sprint perfectly for me."

He also paid tribute to his teammate and good friend in his first tweet after the race, saying, "Proud to be one more year German champion....thanks to my mate ‪@MarcelSieberg very special moment....‪#nowords"

One of the top favourites in a bunch sprint was not there at the end. Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) suffered from cramps in the final lap of the circuit course and was not part of the final sprint.

The men were riding 12 laps of the 17.2 km circuit course, for a total of 206.4km. Only minutes after the race started, four riders got away. Mario Vogt (rad-net ROSE), Grischa Janorschke (Team Vorarlberg), Philipp Zwingenberger (KED-Stevens) and Nils Politt (Team Stölting) were subsequently joined by Arne Egner and Christian Mager, both Team Stölting. They rode out a gap of up to five and a half minutes.

When the gap dropped under two minutes, world and national time trial champion Tony Martin moved to the front of the field and attacked. Working slowly but surely, he caught the leading group, 1:15 ahead of the favourites' group.

Martin took three others with him into the penultimate lap, with a gap of 1:08. By the time the final lap started, Martin and Janorschke were alone with 15 seconds, and were soon caught by the ever-smaller field setting up the expected bunch sprint.

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