Astana were riding for an in-form Boruz Bozic in the Vattenfall Cyclassics and with several riders in the decimated field, things were looking good for the Kazakhs in the finale. In the end, however, the hectic sprint made it impossible to do a proper lead-out and the Slovenian never got a chance to sprint.

"The final 5k were completely crazy," Borut Bozic said after the Vattenfall Cyclassics. "Everything came apart in the sprint -"

With unusually cold weather for August - 15 degrees and at times rainy - the race plan for Astana Pro Team in Hamburg was to work for Bozic in the anticipated final sprint after the hilly circuits around the port city. Teammates Enrico Gasparotto and Andrei Grivko both attacked in the final passage up the hills, and with 10k to go Ruslan Tleubayev was next to Bozic to bring him into a good position at the finish.

But with almost 15km of flat chasing on narrow streets with many technical turns and traffic rotundas, the peloton turned itself inside out like a sock, and pushed leading riders backwards while bringing non-sprinters forward. Tleubayev finished in the same time as the winner - but in 14th position - and Bozic was in the same time at 34th, with Gasparotto, Grivko, Arman Kamyshev and Valerio Agnoli all in the first group of 58 riders.