Brennauer wins German road race title

Lisa Brennauer (WMT-Rotor Pro Cycling Team) won a sprint from a small group on the Sachsen Ring to claim the German women's national road race title on Sunday. Lisa Klein (Canyon-SRAM) was second, with 2018 champion Liane Lippert (Sunweb) third.

It was an early start for the German women, as they took off a 8am for several laps of a large circuit course ending with three laps on the Sachsenring, a motorcycle track, and a total of 103 kilometres.

There were various unsuccessful break attempts in the early laps, but only on the fifth lap was the decisive move made. A group of 24 riders, including most of the big names in the race, got away and stayed away. The group exploded on the final large lap, and 14 riders went into the closing 10.5km on the Sachsenring - 3 laps of 3.5km.

The pace picked up on the penultimate lap, with attacks, riders dropped, and a crash that took out Ale Cipollini's Romy Kasper. In the final kilometre, Kathrin Hammes (WNT-Rotor Pro Cycling Team) was the first to attack, but was caught again with 300m to go. A group of five sprinted for the finish, with Brennauer taking a comfortable win.