FRANFURT: Irish rider Sam Bennett(pix) won the Eschborn-Frankfurt race in a sprint finish on Sunday for his first victory of the season.
The Bora-Hansgrohe rider edged Colombian Fernando Gaviria and Norwegian Alexander Kristoff, a four-time winner of the race who finished on the podium for the seventh straight time.
The 183.9km race, traditionally held on May 1 in the Taunus Mountains around Frankfurt, included eight climbs, but with the last one more than 40 kilometres from the finish, it usually ends in a mass finish for the sprinters.
Led out by his Dutch teammate Danny van Poppel, who finished fifth, Bennett surged to victory, five days before the start of the Giro d’Italia in Budapest.-AFP