The in-form Maxim Van Gils (Lotto-Dstny) sped to his second win of the season at Eschborn-Frankfurt, sprinting to the win at the end of the 210km race from a greatly reduced peloton.
The Belgian popped up late in the sprint finish, hitting the wind at the last moment to edge out Alex Aranburu (Movistar) and Riley Sheehan (Israel-Premier Tech) to take the victory.
Van Gils was the only Lotto-Dstny man among the 28-man lead group which reached Frankfurt, surfing wheels in the final kilometre before working his way to the front on the closing straight in the slipstream of Kevin Vermaerke (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and then Aranburu.
In the closing 100 metres of the race, he rounded fourth-placed neo-pro Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education-EasyPost) and another neo-pro in Sheehan before edging out Aranburu, on paper the quickest finisher among the top contenders.
The result marks Van Gils' fourth professional victory and his first at WorldTour level. He's enjoyed a very consistent spring campaign to date, finishing third at Strade Bianche and La Flèche Wallonne, plus fourth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and seventh at Milan-San Remo.
"It's my last race of an already incredible spring. To finish with a WorldTour victory is an absolute dream," Van Gils said after the finish.
"My feeling was not super good today, but the team made the race hard to drop the sprinters. This gave me confidence and then I just had to survive the last steep climb of Mammolshain and then just stay in the wheels and try to recover and focus on my sprint. Just before the line it opened, and I finished it off.
"It's really crazy, everything went perfect this season, I'm riding on a really high level so I really enjoy it.
"Today I win a sprint and a few days back I was good in the Ardennes in climbing races and I already won a time trial this year. It's crazy."
Van Gils, who also won the reduced one-day version of the Vuelta a Andalucía in late March, concluded by saying that he'll now turn his attention to the summer and the Tour de France, which he'll prepare for with an appearance at the Tour de Suisse next month.
How it unfolded
The final sprint was set up by several teams among the select lead group which had survived after a thinning-out process over the major climbs of the day, which included two ascents of the Feldberg (11km at 5% and 8km at 6%) and three ascents of the Mammolshain (2.4km at 7.7%).
The early break of the day – consisting of Jacopo Mosca (Lidl-Trek), Warre Vangheluwe (Soudal-QuickStep), and John Degenkolb (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) – went almost from the start and hung out until the 90km to go mark up the second ascent of the Feldberg.
UAE Team Emirates and Lotto-Dstny had been busy working at the head of the peloton behind, with the two teams keen to get rid of sprinters including Caleb Ewan (Jayco-AlUla), Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), and Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility).
They'd succeed in their goal, with large groups eventually coming to the finish five and 19 minutes down on the leaders and a few fast finishers among the front group.
Once Vangheluwe, the last man from the break, was caught, it was time for the climbers to show off, with Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates), Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) all on the move on the Feldberg.
Healy and Buchmann went clear on the other side, pushing on together on the descent and onto flatter ground. However, the pair would be caught after 13km on the move, with 55km to go.
The final flashpoint of the day came with the final ascent of the Mammolshain, 36km from the finish. There, neo-pro Christen went again, getting a gap and going solo at the head of the race.
The 19-year-old Swiss rider would carry a slim gap forward, his advantage never stretching much further beyond the 20-second mark. He hit the final 10km with a slim 16-second gap, and with several teams contributing to the chase behind, his time out front was numbered.
He held on to lead by 10 seconds at the 5km mark, but he'd be caught by the charging peloton at 2.3km to go, leaving it up to EF Education-EasyPost, Bora-Hansgrohe, and Lidl-Trek to set up the final sprint.
It was EF and DSM-Firmenich PostNL who launched the final dash to the line inside the last kilometre, but neither team would prevail at the line as Van Gils weaved his way through to hit the front at the last moment and come away with the big win.
Results
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