As anticipation grows for the start of the Giro d’Italia on Saturday, Team Bahrain Victorious will be in Germany on Wednesday for Eschborn-Frankfurt, the country’s most important cycling event. This World Tour one-day race always takes place on May 1st, (2019’s Covid edition excepted), and was first held in 1962.
The route is unchanged this year at 203.8km, and features a circuit with both of the day’s climbs. The Feldberg will be crossed twice, and the shorter but steeper ‘Mammolshain’ (2.3km @8.3% but with ramps up to 15%), three times.
In the past a sprinter has often taken victory, but Bahrain’s Sports Director Enrico Poitschke says it is no longer a race for the pure fast men:
“As we saw last year, it’s more likely now that a group comes to the finish together and fights for the win. It’s going to be hard throughout, and very selective, so I think a lot of teams will have better climbers in their roster than in previous years, rather than just banking on it being a bunch sprint.”
The parcours is not easy, and while some teams will do their best to control the race, the build-up of small ascents certainly seems to favour an early attack pushing a high enough pace to drop the sprinters. Whoever is in contention by the time they reach Frankfurt will have a flat, straight finale of 500 metres where we will see a city centre sprint for glory.
“Our line-up is very strong and very experienced”, continues Poitschke. “Yuki Arashiro, Jack Haig, Wout Poels and Nikias Arndt are four guys who know this kind of race, and are tactically very astute. They can handle any kind of situation that might happen.
Then we have three younger riders, Nicolò Buratti, Cameron Scott and Matevž Govekar. Govekar showed he is in good shape at Romandie last week, and he is someone who can do well if there is a sprint from a selected group. So if that’s how it plays out, Matevž is our man. If there are attacks earlier, especially on the climbs, then Wout, Jack or Nicolò can follow, and we can try to get a good result that way.”
Bahrain’s best result here was Phil Bauhaus’ 4th place in 2022, and with the blend of talent in Germany for us this year, we will be hoping to equal or better that on Wednesday.
The 61st edition of Eschborn-Frankfurt starts at 12:05 CET, and is scheduled to finish between 16:51 & 17:20.
