Sandy Dujardin wins Maryland Cycling Classic - Abrahamsen and Mayrhofer complete podium

The Maryland Cycling Classic, the USA's top race in the pro calendar, has led to a surprise victory for TotalEnergies. The very aggressive race saw a small group battle for victory, and amongst those it was Sandy Dujardin who took a sprint win.

The 173-kilometer long race didn't feature much climbing, but the explosive urban circuit allowed for attacks early on that formed a large group that went on to fight for the victory in the race, with a bunch sprint scraped off early on. This group included several of the pre-race favourites, but not Mattias Skjelmose who crashed at the start of the race and was forced to abandon.

From the front group, there were constant attacks, but the circuit just was not hard enough to really create differences, but a group of seven eventually stood out including Larry Warbasse, Marius Mayrhofer, Jonas Abrahamsen, Anders Johannessen, Mauro Schmid, Sandy Dujardin and Brandon McNulty. The latter two had attacked early on but were caught by the others.

But the attacks between all riders led to a sprint, launched first by Uno-X who led Abrahamsen out, but the Norwegian was outpowered in the final sprint, where Sandy Dujardin was the strongest and won the slight uphill sprint in Baltimore. Abrahamsen and Mayrhofer rode to second and third.