Matthew Brennan secured his second stage win in the Deutschland Tour. The Brit from Visma | Lease a Bike was the fastest in the final stage to Magdeburg. Søren Wærenskjold, who claimed the overall victory, finished second on the day. Jonathan Milan took third place.
For the decisive final stage, the Deutschland Tour peloton traveled to Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday for a ride from Halle to Magdeburg. In total, the riders had to cover just over 160 kilometers on the last day. Apart from the Johannashall (1 km at 7.5%) early on, there were no categorized climbs, so a sprint finish seemed the most likely scenario. Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) was in pole position to win the general classification. His advantage over Jhonatan Narváez was ten seconds.
Halle) Magdeburg)Early in the stage, a fairly big name immediately attacked. Brandon McNulty, recently the winner of the Tour of Poland, went on the offensive. He was also first over the Johannashall, where an interesting duel took place between Enzo Leijnse and Vincent Dorn for the King of the Mountains jersey. Leijnse crossed second, which helped him take the lead in the classification.
Echelons
In the following phase, McNulty built up almost a four-minute gap, but when the peloton started to get nervous, his lead quickly diminished. That nervousness was justified. With just over sixty kilometers to go, the race exploded, McNulty was caught, and the peloton splintered into several groups.
photo: Cor Vos
That created the selection. There were some more attacks, but nobody managed to escape. After Wærenskjold gained some bonus seconds at an intermediate sprint, the thinned peloton headed into the final kilometers. Another intermediate sprint was up ahead, seized by Riley Sheehan. The American thus virtually closed the gap to Jhonatan Narváez but would still need to win the final sprint to truly overtake the Ecuadorian.
Approaching that sprint, there was a heavy crash involving Phil Bauhaus, but the other major favorites stayed upright. Visma | Lease a Bike took the front for Matthew Brennan. In the final straight, Wout van Aert led out his young British teammate, while behind them Danny van Poppel crashed hard. Brennan held on and, just like in the first stage, took the victory. He pushed Wærenskjold into second place. Jonathan Milan finished third this time.
Lidl Deutschland Tour| Rank | Rider | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 03:29:21 | |
| 2 | " | |
| 3 | " | |
| 4 | " | |
| 5 | " | |
| 6 | " | |
| 7 | " | |
| 8 | " | |
| 9 | " | |
| 10 | " |
