Marcin Sapa edged out his breakaway companion Trevis Meyer on the final stage of the Bayern Rundfahrt. The duo saved 16 seconds over the bunch that was led home by Alex Rasmussen. Maxime Monfort was safely tucked into the bunch and celebrated the overall victory. His teammate Leigh Howard won the sprints jersey, Serafin Martinez took home the mountains prize.
"The last day was a difficult, dangerous stage, with really heavy rain and crosswinds splitting the peloton again and again," said HTC-Columbia's sports director Jan Schaffrath.
"It was supposed to be a sprinters' stage, but instead lots of riders tried to get into breaks from early on and the racing was very fast right from the first kilometre.
"Max lost this race last year by just 10 seconds, and this is his first stage race win since 2004, so logically he was a bit nervous at times.
"But he rode very well and stayed in the front group at all times despite all the splits, and his team-mates supported him perfectly and made sure everything was under control."
With a frenzied start to the stage, it was hard for riders to escape the claw of the bunch, but eventually Albert Timmer, Alexander Gottfried and Trevis Meyer managed to get a small gap. But they were quickly brought back, with three riders again attacking and reaching the first (and only) climb of the day with a small gap at km 31. Wout Poels beat Serafin Martinez and Romain Sicard, which secured Martinez the mountains jersey for good.
HTC Columbia controlled the field, with Leigh Howard taking the first sprint at kilometer 64. In the intermittent rain it took until km 72 when a good break finally developed, with Marcin Sapa, Wouter Mol and Trevis Meyer. After only five km their advantage was 2'25 over the resting peloton. The second sprint at km 85 was won by Meyer, ahead of Mol and Sapa.
The trio had a maximum gap of 3'35 (km 99) and kept at it to try to surprise the bunch. The pace was so hard that Mol had to drop back at km 129, when the gap was down to two and a half minutes.
When Meyer and Sapa reached the finish line for the first time, with two laps remaining, the gap was down to 1'35. The duo lost only 20 seconds with one lap remaining. Meyer took the final intermediate sprint before Sapa, while Simon Geschke stormed to third, one minute behind the leaders.
Meyer and Sapa fought hard and kept their advantage to sprint it out.
Results final stage
1 Marcin Sapa (LAM)
2 Trevis Meyer (GRM)
3 Alex Rasmussen (SAX)
Final GC
1 Maxime Monfort (HTC)