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Grand-prix de la Commune de Contern for elite and U23 riders:
Under brillant sky with lots of sun and summerly temperatures, 33 riders took off for an hour of racing. The Czech riders were among the favorites with Ondrej Lukes and they showed it from the beginning: Emile Hekele was the first to enter the woods. The third of last year's race rode a powerfull first lap and managed to open a small gap to an already splitted peloton where David Willemssens and Ondrej Lukes led the chase. At the beginning of the third lap, Hekele was caught again and riders at the front had a moment of hesitation, which meant that 15 men regrouped in the lead. Among the 15, there was also the shining red-white-blue National jersey of Gusty Bausch who seemed to have well recovered from his efforts yesterday in the World Cup of Tabor.
The Czech riders stayed aggressive with Ondrej Lukes taking over. The former Junior World champion created a gap with the young Belgian Klaas Vantornout on the 3rd lap. Behind them, we still had Hekele, together with Willemssens, Daelmans and Pavel Adel. Most of the favourites were at the front, but Gusty Bausch wasn't far behind, together with German rider Sickmuller. Pascal Triebel was a little bit further back at one minute. During the 4th lap, Daelmans made a strong impression and managed to bridge up to the front, as did Belgian National Champion David Willemssens one lap later. There were too much favourites at the front and they hesitated again, to see a strong Gusty Bausch and Johannes Sickmuller come back from behind and bridge up. At half-race, exactly the moment that chose Klaas Vantornout to attack, the situation was the following: 6 riders at the front (Daelmans, Vantornout, Willemssens, Lukes, Bausch, Sickmuller) and 20" behind them, Marek Chichosz, Tom de Kort, Emile Hekele, Pavel Adel and Nico Clarysse still had their chances, whereas Pascal Triebel was at that moment in 18th position, 1'30" down.
The second of the German National Championships, Johannes Sickmuller was the fastest to react to the attack of the long Belgian Vantornout on a road section. Both of them got a gap of 50 m to the next chasers. On the next lap, the gap stayed the same, but Lukes was dropped in the chasing group, whereas a brilliant Gusty Bausch still held on to that group. Vantornout, on his side, didn't want to wait for a sprint an he managed to get rid of Sickmuller on the penultimate lap. The surprisingly strong German never conceded more than 50 m, but wasn't able to come back on the Belgian rider, so that the 2nd Grand-prix de la Commune de Contern was won by Klaas Vantornout. Arne Daelmans made everything clear in the last lap for third place, whereas Gusty Bausch finished 5th at 42 seconds and Pascal Triebel 17th at 4'16"
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