Isaac del Toro to continue season at Cyclassics Hamburg

Three weeks on from finishing on the podium of the Tour de France, Isaac del Toro will continue his season for UAE Team Emirates-XRG at the Cyclassics Hamburg.

In Germany, Del Toro will race the UCI WorldTour one-day race for the second season running, with the Emirati squad hoping to finish on the podium for the first time since Alexander Kristoff’s third place in 2018. From the team car, it will be Sports Director Andrej Hauptman marshalling the seven-man squad.

Alongside Del Toro, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG outfit will be completed by Filippo Baroncini, Mikkel Bjerg, Benoît Cosnefroy, Rune Herregodts, António Morgado, and Florian Vermeersch.

Last season, the Cyclassics Hamburg was won by Rory Townsend, who held off the rampaging peloton to take a surprise victory and upset the sprinters’ applecart. Behind the Irishman, Morgado rode to seventh place for UAE Team Emirates-XRG.

Townsend notwithstanding, this is a race that is well suited to the bunch sprinters, and hosts its 29th edition this year. At 205.2km in length, the Cyclassics Hamburg will run on an almost identical route to last year, including the fresh start in Buxtehude for the second consecutive year.

The opening kilometres will be fast and dart through Lower Saxony, before the race returns to its usual battleground in the outskirts of Hamburg. It is here that the Waseberg climb awaits the peloton, with its 9.1% slopes for 700m. The climb will be tackled on five occasions as the peloton makes its way around a technical, supporter-packed course.

For this reason, although the flat finish naturally lends itself to the sprinters, the fast men will have to be attuned to any opportunistic attacks. The course is not a walk in the park and will make for an attritional afternoon of racing in northern Germany.