Van Leijen rides out long break to win in Münster

Joost van Leijen of Vacansoliel initiated a break only 18 km into the Sparkassen Münsterland Giro and stayed away to the end, winning a two-man sprint on the cobblestones of downtown Münster. Second place went to Dirk Müller (Team Nutrixxion), who had been the Dutchman's original break companion. Robert Wagner of Skil-Shimano won the sprint of the peloton to finish third, 11 seconds down.

The escape group dominated much of the race. Only 18km into the 208km long race, van Leijen and Müller took off, and were soon joined by Reto Hollenstein (Vorarlberg-Corretec). The peloton, led by German ProTour Team Milram, kept the three on a short line, not allowing the lead to get bigger than about three and a half minutes.

After the first ranked climb, Sander Armee (Topsport Vlaanderen), Mads Christensen (Glud & Martstrand) and Bart van Haaren (Van Vliet) took off in pursuit of the three leaders. By km 145 the six came together, with a three minute lead over the field. Van Haaren proved unable to keep up with the others and soon dropped back to the peloton.

With 20 km to go, van Leijen and Müller were able to pull away, and soon crossed the finish line 1:32 ahead of the peloton before heading off on the closing circuit course. They were easily able to hold on to their lead and sprint against one another for the win. The peloton crossed the finish line 11 seconds later.