Elia Viviani delivered Team Sky his second WorldTour win of the year at the Cyclassics Hamburg on Sunday, sprinting ahead of Arnaud Démare (FDJ) and Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo).
>>> Elia Viviani becomes the latest rider to leave Team Sky as he joins Quick-Step Floors for 2018
Viviani has had a tough season in the sprints with just one WorldTour victory at the Tour de Romandie in April, but sped ahead of a high-class field of sprinters in Germany on Sunday to take victory.
The 220km one-day race took place in miserable conditions, with Kamil Malecki (CCC Sprandi) and Nikolay Trusov (Gazprom) the two riders to brave it and head up the road in the breakaway.
They established a gap of almost six minutes, but always looked doomed and were pulled back by the peloton with 53km to go.
Silvan Dillier (BMC Racing Team), Truls Korsaeth (Astana) and Patryk Stosz (CCC Sprandi Polkowice) then tried their luck but weren't allowed to get too much distance with so little of the race still to go.
An elite chase group behind formed but they were quickly brought back to the peloton, and the trio out front were too reeled in with 5km to go to the finish.
Sunweb were the final team at the front of the peloton as they entered the final kilometre to set things up for a bunch sprint, but it was Viviani who showed his class and sprinted to a convincing victory.
Results
EuroEyes Cyclassics Hamburg (220.9km)
1 Elia Viviani (Ita) Team Sky, in 5-15-52
2 Arnaud Demare (Fra) FDJ, at 1s
3 Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo
4 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha-Alpecin
5 André Greipel (Ger) Lotto Soudal
6 Ariel Maximiliano Richeze (Arg) Quick-Step Floors
7 Jasper Stuyven (Bel) Trek-Segafredo
8 Marko Kump (Slo) UAE Team Emirates
9 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) Cofidis, Credit Solutions
10 Rudy Barbier (Fra) Ag2r La Mondiale, all same time
