Kevin Vermaerke rounded out the Deutschland Tour with seventh place on the fourth and final stage having gone clear in the closing kilometres with eight others, sprinting out the win in Saarbrücken. The stage featured an early break of five riders that spend the vast majority of the race out front, only being caught within 10 kilometres to go, but it wasn’t easy going behind. The peloton set a testing pace behind the five over the day’s rolling parcours. The speed caused the bunch to thin out during the stage, leaving a reduced group once the catch was made.
Late attacks ended up with Vermaerke’s small group going clear and fighting out the stage win. Whilst behind, Niklas Märkl and Bjoern Koerdt finished strongly to cross in 12th and 16th respectively. Thanks to the gap at the finish, Vermaerke slides into the top 10 on GC, moving one place ahead of teammate Sean Flynn who finishes 11th overall.
After the stage Vermaerke said: “There were a couple of ways it could have played out with a few climbs on the course today, but in the end it was quite a strong headwind and don’t think anybody really wanted to go all in and blow the race up, so it ended up quite a controlled day. In the last 50 kilometres there were three climbs in a row where we thought it might split but still the headwind was too strong. The guys worked well together to make sure we went into the climbs in a good spot regardless in case anything did happen. In the end it came down to the finishing circuit where there was a hard climb and last time up there the race really exploded. We were maybe a bit too far back going into the bottom but I was able to bridge across to a move that went over the top and that group of nine stayed away to the finish. I didn’t quite get it right in the sprint, it was a bit of a mess, but overall we kept the same GC position we started the morning with. We didn’t get a win this week or a top result we were aiming for but I think with quite a few young guys we learned a lot and got better every day. So we can all take a lot from this race and keep building from here.”
