Overview

• Rory Townsend seized victory after forming part of a four-rider break soon after the Buxtehude start and outgunned Arnaud De Lie and Paul Magnier in a tight sprint on Mönckebergstraße.
• The 28th edition covered a record 207 km with five ascents of the Waseberg and marked the race’s inaugural lower Saxony start in Buxtehude.
• Belgian stars Wout van Aert and Jasper Philipsen joined the field at the last minute—van Aert replacing ill champion Olav Kooij—but finished tenth and fourth respectively.
• Sprinter Phil Bauhaus crashed roughly 50 km from the finish yet remounted to complete the course, and organisers logged 21 ambulance call-outs on a day shared by about 10,000 amateur riders.
• No German rider placed in the top ten for the first time in a decade, extending the home drought since André Greipel’s last victory in 2015.