Movistar wins Climb race at Hammer Series

Carlos Betancur was on song during the opening competition of the inaugural Hammer Series to help deliver Movistar to victory in the Hammer Climb. The Colombian was part of a six-man group that escaped early on and secured top points on most of the laps, and launched an attack on the final lap to take double points on the line.

The race took place over 11 laps of a 7km circuit and the attacks began from the gun, with the peloton fracturing very early in the event. Daniel Oss (BMC Racing) and Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) took the top points on the first two laps, but then a five-man group escaped with Betancur, Tao Geoghegan Hart (Sky), Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb), Victor Campanaerts (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Iuri Filosi (Nippo - Vini Fantini).

Movistar racked up a commanding lead in the final standings with 144.8 points. There was competition for second place on the table with Team Sunweb and Team Sky duking it out. Team Sky’s Tao Geoghegan Hart had been racking up the points for his team until he crashed on a sharp corner in the final laps. The crash took him out of contention for the top points, allowing Sunweb to climb up the standings with the help of Giro d’Italia winner Tom Dumoulin. Sunweb ended the day with 98.9 points compared to Team Sky’s 84.7.

The points also earned the teams time bonuses toward Sunday's chase, with Movistar earning 15 seconds to Sunweb's 12. Sky will get a 10 second bonus.

"I have trained so hard in the last couple of months, training at altitude. A team like this deserves the form I have here. It was an amazing performance by the team and we came here with the idea of winning," Betancur said.

Points ranking