Some important Junior races were held this weekend.
First off, the Driedaagse van Axel. A Dutch race covering 4 stages, three road plus one ITT. The race is mostly flat, as the main obstacles are the wind and some cobbles. For this race the strong US Juniores came back to Europe. They were up against P-R winner Hidde van Veenendaal, French peace race winner Hugo Toumire (not suited to this race though) and German Hannes Wilksch. Top favourite was American Quinn Simmons. And over the course of this race he showed why he probably is the strongest rouleur among juniors this year and red hot favourite for Yorkshire.
On stage one he broke free of a scattered Peloton with teammate Magnus Sheffield and won the stage with 22 seconds on the second group. The other favourites were distanced even further, coming in at 37 seconds. Stage 2 saw the time trial, and once again Simmons convincingly won the stage and even even having time to crash while doing so. Hidde van Veenendaal was second at 12 seconds, Michael Garrison (Probably 2nd strongest among the US juniors overall) 3rd at 14 seconds and in the same time as Toumire. Stage 3 was quite straightforward and ended in a bunch kick with Dutch Olav Kooij ending up victorious. Todays 4th and last stage featured some hills (Leberg being one) and the Paddestraat as obstacles and on this classics profile stage Simmons once again tore the race apart and won solo with 46 seconds on Hidde van Veenendaal. The next group, containing 3rd and 4th place finishers in GC, Hannes Wilksch and Michael Garrison, trailed by 59 seconds.
Simmons won the GC by almost 2 minutes. As of now he probably is the favourite for Yorkshire, as the route should really suite him and his characteristics.
GC:
1 SIMMONS Quinn 7:21:59
2 VAN VEENENDAAL Hidde 1:58
3 WILKSCH Hannes 2:24
4 GARRISON Michael 2:37
5 HOHMANN Lars 2:48
The second stage race that was held this weekend was the French Trophée Centre Morbihan. The Trophée consists of three stages, two (moderately) hilly road stages and a flat ITT.
The startlist was pretty good, standing out were the British team (probably the strongest in the Junior category), the German team also pretty strong and the French with a lot of depth. The also strong team from Norway, Italy and Spain and interesting rider like impressive Ukrainian Ponomar.
The first stage saw the strongest riders breaking away at the front of the race. In the end it was Italian Gregorio Butteroni winning out of a small group in front of Brit Sam Watson (winner of Guido Reybrouck) and Norwegian Johannsson (a surprise of this race definitely). Michel Hessmann and Spains Juan Ayuso Pesquera also made the group. The next group came in at 20 seconds with the peloton losing more than a minute and thus already the race overall.
The ITT saw no real surprises as strong German time trialist and 4th at last years worlds Michel Hessmann took the win and thus the overall, having finished in the front group yesterday. Second place for Brit Leo Hayter (little brother of Ethan, numerous top results in the classics and a pretty handy sprinter) and third for German classics rider Maurice Ballerstedt confirming his strong showing at the peace race. An interesting name is 5th place finisher Carlos Rodriguez, he has some very good results so far and could definitely feature at the worlds.
Todays final stage saw strong Ukrainian Ponomar solo away from a peloton that was held together by the Germans for Hessmann, who went on to win the race. Definitely a favourite for the ITT at the worlds.
GC:
1 HESSMANN Michel 5:27:45
2 WATSON Samuel 0:17
3 JOHANSSON Oskar Myrestøl 0:23
4 BUTTERONI Gregorio 0:30
5 AYUSO PESQUERA Juan 0:42