Greipel sprints to German national title

Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) won the battle of the sprinters in the German national road race in Erfurt, claiming his third national title. Max Walscheid (Giant-Alpecin) was second and Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) third.

The flat course in and around Erfurt was an obvious invitation for a bunch sprint finish. 200 riders took to the start, although both Greipel and Kittel had only one helper each – Marcel Sieberg for Greipel, and Tony Martin for Kittel.

Martin went to work early, leading the race and pushing a very high tempo, to decimate the field as far as possible. It wasn’t until the sixth of 11 laps of the circuit course that a group got away. But with Greipel and Martin in that group, the rest of the field couldn’t let it go and caught them again. No further attacks were successful, and a large group came to the finish.

Greipel stayed with Sieberg, who went into the wind early, and then looked for Kittel’s rear wheel. "John Degenkolb opened the sprint about 400 meters before the finish line and I was on his wheel and then I sprinted for it too," the winner said.

The second place would have been quite an accomplishment for Walscheid under any circumstances, but this silver medal is a special one. He was one of six Giant-Alpecin riders to have been seriously injured in training camp accident in January. Suffering a broken hand and tibia, he was the last of the group to return to training and this was only his fourth race of the year.

"For a few months after the accident I was not sure if I could ride a bike in the race, so this is a good day," he said.

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