Milatz and Spitz take Trans Zollernalb stage 1 victories

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Moritz Milatz and Sabine Spitz have won the opening stage of the three-day Trans Zollernalb. After 58.8km from Bad Imnau to Balingen, Milatz won a sprint finish ahead of Hannes Genze and Alban Lakata, who took the overall lead by virtue of having taken a bonus in an intermediate sprint. Spitz won a close duel with Esther Suess in the women's race while Norwegian Borghild Loevset got the third spot on the women's podium.

Lakata did the two previous editions of Trans Zollernalb and knew that the race can be decided by seconds. Therefore he tried to get bonus seconds at the two intermediate sprints.

While the first sprint was won by U23 rider Simon Stiebjahn in front of Markus Bauer and Kevin van Hoovels, Lakata was able to be in the first position at the second sprint.

These three seconds helped him slip into the leader's jersey after the first stage. On the very fast course, Milatz tried to reduce the leading group by sometimes accelerating on the short uphill sections, but at the end, 10 riders entered the city area of Balingen together.

Defending race champion Robert Mennen attacked first, with two kilometres to go, but was neutralized, then Lakata tried but was followed by the two Multivan-Merida men: Hannes Genze and Jochen Käß.

After that, Genze from the leading position tried to get his teammate Käß into the best position, but European cross country champion Milatz paid attention and got on Genze's wheel.

"I attacked with about 300 meters to go. I didn't know the rest of the course, but I tried and was able to make it. I had no special plan for the three days, except training for the marathon worlds, but in my mind was to go for a stage win," said Milatz.

"We will see what happens next two days, but it's not easy because I have no teammate with me," he said.

Genze got second place in front of Lakata, German national marathon champion Markus Kaufmann and Jochen Käß.

All the favourites, including marathon world champion Christoph Sauser, were in the leading group, except Karl Platt. The multi-time Cape Epic winner found himself having a bad day and lost 15 minutes in the less than two-hour race.

Tight finish between Spitz and Süss

In women's race, Germany's marathon title holder Elisabeth Brandau and Silke Schmidt, third in the European marathon championships this year, were missed on the starting line. Schmidt was absent due to professional responsibilities as a lawyer and Brandau because she got sick.

So it was the expected duel between Sabine Spitz and Esther Süss, both former marathon world champions. In between the men's peloton, first Spitz had an advantage over Süss, because the Swiss marathon champion struggled a bit. But then Spitz had problems with her saddle and she lost that group of men and was caught by the next.

Süss was able to make it back to Spitz then and they reached Balingen together. In the lead up until the last corner, Spitz and Süss were taking different lines and and coming out of the turn, Süss had to brake to prevent a crash. "Maybe I am a little bit too nice?" Süss said with a ironic smile.

That made the victory for Spitz. "Of course, I am here for training, but it is always nice to get a stage win," she said. "For the next two days, I have my plan, don't mind what Esther will do. We will see how it goes."

Borghild Loevset was not able to follow the women who were second and fifth at the London Olympic Games, but she did ride to a solid third place.

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