This race had been entirely dominated by the riders from the Continental team CCI Differdange with 4 riders among the best: Christian Poos the winner, Vincenzo Centrone second, Frederik Johansson fourth and Hakan Nilsson fifth. Since then, the men of Gabriel Gatti also imposed their law in Dippach with Robert Retschke (victorious), Centrone (third) and Poos (fourth) as well as in Belvaux with Brenes (first) and Frank Dressler (second). Even if the course is much less selective than in Contern, it thus seems obvious that the riders of Differdange will be the men to be beat at the 22nd Grand-prix OST-Fenster , especially as they have accumulated the good performances recently with the fast Cyrille Heymans, 10th of a stage Boucles des Artois, 9th of the Grand-prix de la ville de Nogent or 13th in the Ronde van Noord-Holland, with Christian Poos, 5th of a stage at the Tour Rhone-Alp-Isere or Hannes Blank, 2nd of the Tour d'Alsace and 3rd of the Tour de Lorraine last year and 2nd of Paris - Mantes in Ivelines recently. It Remains to be seen who exactly will be aligned in a team where the choice is large with former Belgian champion Ludovic Capelle, cyclo-cross specialist Nicolas Bazin, the winner of last year's Tour of Costa Rica Gregory Brenes or the Scandinavians Frederik Johansson, (victorious of the Grand-prix Ostfenster 2004), Martin Johansson and Hakan Nilsson, to quote only them. Or could it be Jempy Drucker who creates the surprise, the new recruit of CCI Differdange which has only recently resumed competition after a fracture of the collarbone in winter, but who appeared already in good form at the Arno Wallaard Memorial, a race of 175 kilometers for professional riders, in which he took an excellent 9th place last weekend.

Eventually, they were six in the lead in the third lap and, behind them, the peloton had splitted up into several pieces after the acceleration of Carlsen, losing some ground again. 25 riders were the immediate chasers with, of course, among them some members of the teams of Differdange (Heymans, Drucker, Centrone) and PPL Belisol (Cuppens, Paas), but also an American (Chris Barton) as well as Daniel Bintz, Tom Kohn, Jacques Dahm, Patrick Gressnich, Philippe Hermann, Tom Wecker, Carlo Kirsch, Olivier Laterza and a trio from Team Espoir Robert Lange. But the rest of the pack wasn't far behind and in several waves, other riders bridged up to the first chasing group, including four from Predictor-Lotto (Boivin, Nanni, Brown, Rousseau), Japanese rider Shimada, Mark Habets, Hakan Nilson, Chris Monteleone and two more riders from Team Robert Lange. The latter were at the number of five in the group (Thiemeier, De Benedictus, Gajewiak, Ohlenschläger et Flemming) and did most of the chasing for a moment, whereas PPL Belisol for example remained surprisingly passive at the back, although they were not represented in the leading break.

Poos and Carlson.

7 riders chasing.

With four laps to go, the advantage of the 6 leading riders was around a minute, but the 36 chasers were still not working very well together. Thiemeier, Cuppens and Kohn tried to bridge up alone, but nobody managed to set up a real chase in this group. As a result, several more riders, including for example the young Kevin Feiereisen who was brilliant 6th two days ago in the Henninger Turm race for juniors, bridged up from behind and the gap to the leaders increased again. But the legs started to feel tired in the break, with nearly 100 kilometers at the front now, and the small group exploded. Christian Poos and Kirk Carlsen clearly were the strongest, they took the lead followed by Guillardin, Bentner and Salon, whereas Daan De Jonge disappeared from the head of the race, even though he was among the favourites on paper today. Poos and Carlsen worked well together for a while, whereas Peter Salon dropped the two others and took up the chase alone. He was able to get close to the two leaders and had them in sight (gap 18 seconds). Carlsen was of course informed that his team-mate from Garmin-Felt was not far behind and refused to take turns at the front after that. But Christian Poos was not willing to have another american with him, and after some discussions and hesitation, he decided to do the work on his own, with the American champion in his wheel. Salon stayed wihtin sight, but he didn't manage to close up: with one lap to go, the he was 40 seconds late.

Kirk Carlsen wins the GP OST-Fenster.

Poos, Carlsen, Salon, Feiereisen.

In the meantime, there has also been some movement behind them: Centrone (Differdange), Wecker (Tétange), Kirsch (Roeserbann), Barton (Team USA), Rousseau (Predictor-Lotto) as well as Paas and Cuppens (PPL Belisol) broke away and swallowed up Guillardin and Bentner, who had a superb race today. But they were already 2 minutes late and after the last ascent of the 9,6% steep Esperbierg, the situation was clear: the victory would go either to Poos or to Carlsen. But the American was of course a lot more fresh than the Luxemburgish rider, after having spent nearly two laps in his wheel, and he attacked in one of the key sections of the race. On the windy false flat between Berbourg and Bech, he quickly took 50 meters advantage and went away for a solo win. Kirk Carlsen finally won the 22nd Grand-prix OST-Fenster with 17 seconds advantage on Christian Poos, thus being the first American to write his name into the palmares of the race. 1'06" later, fellow countryman Peter Salon took third place, whereas the fourth position went to another US-rider. Chris Barton eventually left all the others behind in the last lap and completed the extraordinary performance of the American National Team in Luxemburg. Maikel Paas won the sprint of the first group for 5th place, while Jempy Drucker finished 14th in a second group. He is licensed with the ACC Contern, but rides this year for the Continental team of Differdange. 3'48" behind the winner, Kevin Feiereisen was fastest of a third group, thus taking 21st position and first junior place. Maybe he knows that several years ago (1998), Frank Schleck finished best junior rider during the 14th edition of the Grand-prix OST-Fenster.