Dominic Klemme from Team 3C Gruppe-Lamonta has won the German national road race title in the U23 category. The 20 year-old from Bielefeld won the sprint of an eight-man strong front group.
The 171-kilometre race on Sunday was held in Stuttgart on the same course athletes will face during the World Championships in September.
According to German radsport-aktiv.de the winner called the 19-kilometre circuit "extremely difficult." Not that he is a stranger to mountains - he wore the climber's jersey for three straight days in the Niedersachsen Rundfahrt in April and finished third in that competition overall.
"He has done everything right," commented coach Peter Rohracher on Klemme's sprint, which he started from third position to beat Christian Kux (Team Milram U23) and Simon Geschke (KED-Bianchi).
"I want to be on the podium," noted Dominic Klemme on Friday of his intentions to be one of the hot favourites. "This will be my season's highlight," Klemme had made clear even before the season got underway.
As expected the decisive point of the race was the "Herdweg" ("cooker way") with pitches up to 17 percent. In the sixth of nine laps three riders gained a maximum advantage of over two minutes.
It was during the pursuit of this front trio when the main field became reduced from 40 to an 18-man lead group, which later shrunk to 15. In the last kilometre a group of eight was able to get away and fought it out in a small group sprint.
